


There'll Be Peace When You Are Done

by somekindofpath



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Agatha thought she was done with this shit, Also jokes I promise, America, Angst, Break Up, Getting Back Together, Homophobia, I swear I did not intend to guess the plot of Wayward Son but here we are, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Micah is a saint, My boys are so stubborn, Penny has had enough, Pining, Plotting, Road Trips, Trauma, Wayward SOON
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofpath/pseuds/somekindofpath
Summary: I’ve been away for so long that I’ve started to worry I imagined it. Or that we weren’t as happy as I thought. Or that I was in a blissful sleep for three years of my life and now I’ve woken up to a nightmare.The night before Baz graduates from university, Simon breaks up with him. (Because, as Baz will tell you, he is an idiot.)A year later they still aren't talking, Simon has a new girlfriend, and Baz is wearing a lot of purple.Penny has had it up to here with the pair of them. So she decides to take them on a road trip.





	1. The flat

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So I was sitting around one lunchtime speculating on the plot of Wayward Son, and several months later, things have gotten wildly out of control.
> 
> To be clear: whatever Book Two is about, I don't actually think it will be like this. But it's fun to write while we wait for more news.
> 
> Thank you to my buddy Bethan for betaing, always being willing to discuss fanfiction at length, and telling me when my plotlines are too stupid even for this story.
> 
> UPDATE on March 15th, day of the Wayward Son synopsis reveal: Oops.
> 
> UPDATE PART 2: The incredible @andakillerqueen has made an Apple Music playlist for this fic, featuring the songs at the beginning of each chapter (and a couple of surprises). Thank you! [Listen along here.](https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/therell-be-peace-when-you-are-done/pl.u-JPAZ9YPIL8DXLa)

_Now then Mardy bum_  
_I see your frown and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun_  
_And it goes off_  
_\- Arctic Monkeys, Mardy Bum_

**BAZ**

Aleister Crowley, I never thought he would actually say it.

“Simon, love,” I say softly, taking a step towards him and gripping his shoulders, hard. His tail is swishing angrily from side to side, his wings are flapping behind him, his face is screwed up in fury. He looks like a little demon. If he still had his magic, I would be ducking for cover. “Come on. You don’t mean that.”

“I _do_ mean it, _”_ he insists. Then he says it again: “I don’t want you anymore.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?” I press.

I’m trying to understand how we got here. I thought things were going swimmingly. He’d managed to pass all of his exams and graduate with an English degree. (I know. _English_. The boy who can barely string a sentence together.) He wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, but he had enough of the Mage’s gold left to take the summer off with me before I started my Masters in September. (That’s one benefit of being the heir to a murderous dictator.)

We were going to go travelling. I wanted to go to Egypt, to see where my mother’s family was from. Simon wanted to go to California, to visit Agatha. I didn’t even give him shit about it - I thought we could do both. We’d been so distracted with school over the last few months that I would have let him take me anywhere. We had so much time.

I'm supposed to be graduating tomorrow morning. I'm actually looking forward to it; our robes are black with purple lining, and even I can see how much they make me look like Christopher Lee. When I first tried them on, Simon laughed so hard he almost fell over and then snogged me until I saw stars. I told him he would have to have a bit more decorum on the day itself, especially when my family are around, and he told me he would try his best but it wasn’t his fault that society had conditioned him to find vampires sexy, so then I popped my fangs and...

Anyway. Tonight Penny is visiting her parents, so after celebrating with some classmates, I came over to the flat with takeaway and my best suit for tomorrow. I thought we could share a curry and maybe start looking up Air BnBs for our trip. I thought he’d be happy. _I_ was happy.

Instead, it was like coming home to Simon aged 17. He was prowling the flat, sniping at me, asking where I’d been, narrowing his eyes like he thought I was plotting something. (“All I am plotting,” I told him coolly, “is how to get you to shut up so I can eat. Would you rather I set a chimera on you?”)

I’ve learned to take these moods on the chin. They happen sometimes - he’s always had a temper, especially with me, but it changed after we left Watford. It was less about me setting him off, and more about what was going on in his own head. It’s understandable, after what he went through. That’s what Penny and I were always reminding each other when it first started happening; that the Mage did a number on him, fucked him up and made him feel worthless and then died without saying sorry. That when everyone has always abandoned you, it’s hard to trust that others will stay. Of course Simon feels alone. Of course he lashes out at us. _We don’t have to take it personally._ He always apologises afterwards, backing down almost as quickly as he flares up.

But knowing this is true and acting like it is true are very different things. After all, fighting Simon Snow is probably my second favourite thing to do in the whole world. It's been a while since I had the chance.

The problem is, Snow reprising the greatest hits of his I-hate-Baz routine made me want to revisit mine. So I put down the takeaway, raised an eyebrow, and let him have it.

“Why do you always have to be such a shit?” he demanded hotly, once we’d both traded the lowest blows we could think of. As if he hadn’t been the one to start it.

“How is bringing you food being shitty, you dunce?”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not stupid!”

“Really?” I folded my arms. “Because I have yet to see any evidence of that tonight.”

“For fuck’s sake. I don’t need this!” He threw his own arms up in the air. “I don’t need you sneering and judging everything I do like a stern headmaster. I got enough of that in school.”

“And I don’t need a child throwing tantrums for attention,” I snarled. (Did he really just compare me to the Mage?) “Tell me. Do all orphans find it so hard to grow up and live like a fucking adult, or is it just the really damaged ones?”

Maybe I crossed a line.

“Fuck you!” he shouted. “Just… fuck off and go if I’m so much trouble!”

“I could,” I snapped. (I couldn’t.) “It would be easy.” (It would kill me.)

“Good!” he insisted, and that’s when his wings and tail burst into view, breaking out of Penny’s hiding spell like they refused to go unseen any longer. “I don’t want you anymore!”

I never thought he would actually say it.

“Tell me what’s really wrong,” I say again now, holding firm onto his shoulders even as he struggles and tries to get away.

“Nothing’s wrong - except I’m sick of looking at your creepy face.”

I smirk. “Impossible.” I’m wearing my hair down the way he likes it and everything.

“This isn’t funny!”

I sigh. I’m tired of fighting now. “I know, love. I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean any of that. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?”

“Stop calling me that! I’m not your love!”

“Since when?” I scoff. I lean closer to him. Maybe I should just kiss him. That usually shuts him up.

“Since… since…”

“For Crowley’s sake, Snow, you’re an English graduate now. Use your words.”

“Since I stopped loving you!” he roars, pushing me away, and this time I’m so surprised that it works. I stumble backwards and stare at him. His wings are still flapping. His fists are balled up by his sides. I wait for him to deflate, to apologise and take it back, to take my hands in his. He doesn't.

He couldn't have meant that, could he? Not now. Not after everything. Not after three and a half years of slowly piecing ourselves back together, figuring out how we fit in a world without the Mage and the Humdrum tearing us apart. Not after movie nights with Penny and kisses in the morning and trips to see my family and mindblowing sex and solving my mother’s murder and holidays to Scotland and saving the World of Mages and making plans for the future.

We have plans for the future.

Just last week we were talking about finally moving in together in September. We practically do already, of course - but we were talking about doing it officially. Just the two of us.

How could he go from “let’s get a place” to “I don’t love you” in a few days?

He couldn’t. He’s lashing out. This is what he does. _Don’t take it personally._

“You don’t mean that,” I say. “Simon. Come on.”

“I do,” he says. His voice is still sharp. It’s never this sharp. “Don’t tell me what I mean.”

“Simon,” I say again, going softer, repeating his name like a prayer. “ _Simon._ You don’t have to do this. I love you. I chose you.”

That’s when he crosses the line.

“You said I could change my mind, didn’t you? At the Leavers’ Ball? Well, I have.”

I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry in front of Simon fucking Snow because he’s dumped me the night before graduation. So I reach somewhere inside myself and dust off the mask that I thought I no longer needed, and I put it on. My brow smooths. My mouth is firm. My eyes go dead. I feel all of the emotion drain from my face as I slowly straighten up, raise an eyebrow at him, then pick up my suit and walk out. I don’t even slam the door behind me. I just go.

As soon as I step outside, I fall apart.

**SIMON**

Oh shit.

I didn’t mean that.

I never thought he would actually _go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry!!! They are both idiots. Posting the first two chapters at once.


	2. London

_Go on, go on, just walk away_  
_Go on, go on, your choice is made_  
_\- The Cure, In Between Days_

_ONE YEAR LATER_

**PENNY**

I’m in the library finishing up my final coursework when Philippa texts me. I tried to resist giving her my number for the first couple of months after she started dating Simon (I have enough friends already, and anyway I’m Team Baz) but eventually I gave in. She is a mute, after all. Texting is one of her primary forms of communication, even when she’s in front of you - it’s sort of harsh to leave her hanging. Plus, she might need it for emergencies.

Like now.

**_(15:34) Need ur help. Simons a mess. Come quick._ **

I shove my books and my laptop into my backpack and head outside, hurrying towards the nearest tube stop.

I won’t lie; I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Simon was a mess for months after Baz left. I used to get a text or a call from him in crisis almost every day, and every day I would pack up whatever I was doing and go to him.

My classmates all thought I had a secret baby that needed looking after. (Because they are idiots.) (How would a baby even know how to text?)

I spent endless nights curled up on the sofa with him, patting his back and letting him cry. For the first few weeks I slept in his bed with him, but eventually I had to draw the line. I don’t know how Baz did it for so long - Simon runs hot  _all the time_ , even without his magic, and his tail is always swishing around while he sleeps. He told me, sniffing a bit pathetically, that Baz used to wrap it around his leg to keep it still. I told him I did not need to know that and would not be doing it. He cried some more.

It was a bad time.

But slowly he got better, and he called me to his side less often, and then he got a job in a local bakery and started to get his life back together.

I could tell he was still sad. He Skypes his psychologist every week, even now. But he wasn’t broken any more. He didn’t mention Baz so often. (He never told me what made him leave, incidentally. Neither of them will tell me. It’s maddening.)

Then one day, who should walk into his little bakery looking for a lemon cupcake but Philippa bloody Stainton. Philippa of the fifth-year-Simon-crush. Philippa without the voice.

Philippa, Baz’s first (and only) real victim.

Look. I like the girl. I do. She’s perfect for Simon, really. They both lost their magic. They’re both reluctantly trying live in the Normal world while knowing that the World of Mages exists. They both flinch whenever I slip up and mention Baz.

Baz was not perfect for Simon. He was… something else entirely. It's not fair to keep comparing them all the time.

I just can’t bring myself to actually be  _friends_ with her. She’s  _Philippa Stainton_. She was boring even when she  _could_ talk.

(I know, I know, I’m a horrible person. But Baz would have laughed at that joke.)

Worst of all, she can’t handle Simon. Not really. Not when he gets like he gets.

He’s been fine since they started dating, to be honest. But even when he’s in a bad mood, she looks at me nervously like she’s hoping I’ll know what to do, even though she’s supposedly his girlfriend. And I  _do_ know what to do. I just miss the times when someone else did too. When I wasn’t the only person on call.

Anyway, like I said. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. It’s been too long since he had a breakdown. And it’s the anniversary of that day.

The worst day.

The day when I came home from my parents’ house to find Baz gone, and Simon in the shower, just standing there with the bathroom door wide open, scalding hot water searing blisters into his chest, staring at the wall in silence. His face was blank, and when he looked at me it was as though he couldn’t see me. It reminded me of when he showed up at my house the day he lost his magic, after almost burning down the Pitch estate.

It was  _scary._ I had to call Dr Wellbelove to make sure he hadn’t seriously burned himself. I didn't leave his side for about 48 hours. I had to make sure he got out of bed, ate, went to the toilet. I had to sit in the bathroom with him while he showered to make sure he didn’t turn the temperature up too high. It took three whole days before he said a word to me, and three weeks before I felt like it was Simon, my Simon, looking back at me.

I had been planning to visit Micah in New York that summer, while Simon and Baz went on their grand trip together. Instead I barely left our flat.

I haven’t mentioned the anniversary of the break up to Simon, because I didn’t want to set him off. But I know he’s been thinking about it. He’s been stressed all week, snapping at me for little things and pacing about the flat like a caged dragon.

By the time I get there, it’s been half an hour since Philippa texted me. I run up the stairs, but I pause for a moment before I burst through the door, even with the key in my hand. I don’t know what I’m about to find. How big of a mess are we talking? Is it “Simon is obsessively baking hundreds of scones even though it’s his day off and he knows no one will eat them?” Or is it “Simon seems to be attempting to burn off his own skin in the shower?”

It turns out it’s somewhere in between.

He’s clothed and dry (thank magic) but he’s in bed at 4pm with all of the curtains drawn, weeping and refusing to talk to Philippa. (Or read the notes she’s pushing at him.) When I get there, she’s just sitting on the edge of his bed, patting his side awkwardly. She’s written a note for me too.

**_I got here at 3pm. Not sure if he’s been up at all today. He won’t look at me or say anything. I tried making tea but he isn’t even eating scones. (!!??) Not sure what to do._ **

“I’ve got it from here,” I tell her shortly. I look around the room. Gracie Slick, she could have thought to open a window, at least; it’s boiling hot and it smells like death in here. Simon must be about to combust.

She frowns, points to herself, and signs something at me. I’m rusty (Simon keeps nagging at me to learn BSL properly, but it feels like acknowledging that she’ll be around long-term) but I recognise the thumbs up resting on an open palm. I made sure I learned that one:  _help._

She wants to help.

“You already did,” I tell her. “You called me. That was the right thing to do.”

She sighs and stands up, resting her hand on Simon’s side for a moment. Then she holds her thumb and pinky finger to her face and mouths  _call me later_ at me, and leaves.

I snort. She gives up too easily. If she  _really_ cared about Simon -

“Penny?” Simon whimpers. I stop thinking mean thoughts about his girlfriend.

“Yeah?” I ask, and I walk around his bed to the window, opening it up to let in some fresh air. I pull out my wand and mutter a cooling spell under my breath, breathing a sigh of relief as the temperature begins to drop to something habitable by humans again.

“P-Penny,” he says again, and suddenly the sobs are wracking his whole body, like they’re clawing their way out of him. I clamber up onto his bed and under the covers with him, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him close.

That’s what Philippa doesn’t understand. You’ve got to get close to Simon. If you want anything to happen, you’ve got to get right in his face.

“It’ll be okay,” I say, patting his back. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“I - I c-can’t believe he’s gone,” he chokes out.

“It’s not like he's dead,” I say. Sometimes you have to reason with depressed people, to remind them that life isn't quite as dark as their brain is telling them it is. “I saw him just last week. He’s already got a fancy new job lined up, the jammy bastard.”

“Not B-Baz,” Simon says, although he sounds heartbroken as he says it. (He always sounds heartbroken when he says his name.) “The Mage. I can’t believe the Mage is gone.”

“Oh,” I say, my hand stilling on his back. “Oh,  _Simon.”_

Maybe I will need back-up after all.

**PHILIPPA**

I'm not a victim, by the way - no matter what Penelope thinks. And unlike her, I'm not under Baz Pitch's spell. I know what he's capable of. I know the kind of damage that can be done when you get in his way. And I know that Simon deserves more than that.

I love Simon. I always have - how could I not? And it's not just because he's a hero (although everywhere you turned at Watford, he was always handsomely swinging a sword and saving the day). It's because when we were in first year, and he was too frightened and overwhelmed to even speak to people, he still smiled at me.

I dropped my bag in the hallway and all my books and pens spilled out everywhere, and everyone just stepped over them - except Simon. He knelt down and silently helped me pick everything up, and then he smiled at me.

It's funny how things change; that now, all these years later, I'm the one who can't speak.

But that doesn't mean I have nothing to say.

**AGATHA**

Penelope calls just as I get back from walking Lucy. Seeing her name pop up on video chat makes something twist at the bottom of my stomach. We only spoke a couple of days ago; it’s usually weeks before we catch up again. Something is wrong.

For a second, I seriously consider not answering. I could be at work, or on a date, or in the cinema. She doesn’t know. There are all sorts of reasons why I might miss her call, and I couldn’t be blamed for  _all_ of them.

But I know she wouldn’t call me unless it was about Simon. The World of Mages could be in grave peril, and she wouldn’t call. I’ve made it perfectly clear that peril and I are no longer on speaking terms.

But if Simon is in trouble (real trouble, not stuck-down-a-magical-well trouble) then she’ll call me, and so I take a deep breath and answer.

“Hey, Pen. What’s going on?”

“It’s Simon.”

Told you. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s having one of his episodes.” She’s whispering; she’s in their kitchen with the door closed. Simon must be elsewhere. “I thought it was about Baz, but he keeps talking about the Mage.”

“The  _Mage?”_ I honestly haven’t thought about the Mage in two years. It was nice while it lasted, I guess.

“Yeah, I know. I think it’s a delayed response to his grief or something. He was like his father, you know?”

I wrinkle my nose. “A manipulative father who tried to  _take away Simon’s magic.”_

“Right. An extremely shitty father. But still like a father. Simon thinks he’s all alone in the world. Since Baz left, it’s just been me and him. I know he worries about what will happen when Micah and I settle down, and with me finally about to graduate, it’s all stirred up again.”

“What about Philippa?” I ask, and Penny rolls her eyes. Poor Philippa. She’s had a crush on Simon for years, but it’ll never work out if she can’t get Penelope Bunce on her side. Why does she love  _Baz,_ an actual vampire, and not the sweet girl whose life that  _same vampire_ ruined?

If you ask me, she’s good for Simon. He needs someone a bit more normal after all the craziness of Watford. Not  _Normal_ , obviously, because he’s a terrible liar and he hates keeping secrets. Plus, he does still love magic despite everything. Just... normal. Philippa is normal. She’s better than normal - she’s nice. Simon deserves someone who’s nice to him.

No one ever asks me though.

“Philippa is useless,” Penny is saying. “She thought making him tea might help.”

“Tea always makes me feel better.”

Penny rolls her eyes again. “Well why don’t  _you_ date bloody Philippa then?”

“Did you call me for advice, Pen?” I sigh, flopping into the hammock on my front porch and pulling Lucy up onto my stomach.

“Yes,” Penny admits, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I just wondered if you’d consider visiting this summer? Remind him that he has more than one friend? Maybe take him out with your parents, help him feel like he’s part of a family again?”

“I can’t,” I say sadly. “I have a job.”

“Screw the job! This is  _Simon.”_

“It’s a good job!”

It is. I’m an assistant make-up artist at a celebrity cosmetics company. I get to go on sets and meet TV stars and help make them look beautiful. It’s a Normal job, but it’s not normal - it’s exciting. I can’t wait to get up and go to work every day. Unfortunately, I already used up most of my yearly vacation allowance when my parents’ came over a few months ago, and we took a road trip up the West Coast. I can’t just buy a plane ticket and hop over to London.

I love Simon, but he’s still an ex-boyfriend on the other side of the world. I can’t sacrifice my happiness because he’s had a bad day.

Penny obviously thinks I should. But Penny has spent half her life sacrificing her happiness for Simon. (I know all about her cancelled trip to New York. In fact, I know that she had applied to do her Master's degree at Yale this year, and I don't believe that they rejected her. She stayed in London anyway.) (I don’t know how Micah stands it.)

“Look. Why don’t you both come here?” I say, because she is looking at me like I just murdered her puppy. “You’re almost done with college, right? It sounds like Simon needs a change of scene. My housemates are both out of town for a month, you can stay in their rooms. You can even invite Micah. Get Simon some sun. Go to the beach. The sea can be very healing.”

I expect Penny to mock me for how  _California_ that sounded. (I didn’t mean to slip up and say  _college,_ I’m just so used to using the American words now.) I expect her to say no, it will be too much trouble, she can handle it herself. In fact, I’m sort of counting on it - I’ve worked very hard to build a magic-free life over here, and the last thing I need is a boy with a dragon’s tail showing up and scaring my neighbours.

But she doesn’t. In fact, she looks at me like I’m a genius.

“Aggie,” she cries, thrilled. “You’re a genius!”

My stomach twists again, and I cuddle Lucy closer. “Thanks,” I say. “I try.”

But I’m already regretting this.

**BAZ**

I meet Bunce for lunch in the cafe outside Somerset House, as per our usual Wednesday tradition. It’s a hard week, so I’m wearing a lavender linen suit to project an air of confidence. No one who is still mourning their ex-boyfriend would wear lavender to lunch.

Bunce sees straight through me, naturally.

“So how's the pining?” she asks once we have caught up on all of the proper pleasantries.

I sneer at her.

She just smiles at me until I drop the act. I make her wait for it though, smoothing out the creases in my trousers and pouring myself another cup of tea until I can’t take it anymore. “It’s fine. How is Snow?”

“He’s been better. I left him with a box set of Doctor Who.”

“He's not at work?”

“I convinced him to take a sick day.”

I almost shatter the teacup in my hand. “Is he sick?”

She rolls her eyes. “Calm down, Cullen. He's fine. He had a bit of a wobble yesterday, that's all. I'm sure he wasn't the only one.”

I glare at her. Admittedly she's right: I spent the whole afternoon sat at Fiona's kitchen table trying to drink my weight in vodka, but it's annoying that I can never get anything like that past her.

(“Jesus Christ, Baz,” Fiona said when she came home. “I wish you'd at least drank the cheap stuff.”) (I don't get drunk as easily as living people do.) (But I can be persistent.)

“He kept talking about the Mage,” says Bunce, and I stop glaring at her.

“That makes sense,” I admit, although I'm a bit offended that he wasn't talking about me a year after we broke up. I suppose that's what happens when you're the dumper, not the dumpee. “The Mage was like his father. His extremely shitty father.”

“That's what I said!” She looks proud.

“What was he saying about him?”

“That he can't believe he's dead, and he wishes he knew what really happened. All the usual.”

I nod. I listened to a lot of similar speeches myself a couple of years ago. “I wish we did know what really happened,” I say.

“Yeah, me too. And I wish…” she trails off and takes a bite out of her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully.

“Spit it out,” I say. (Meaning her thoughts.) (Not the sandwich.)

She swallows. “I wish we knew more about his parents. Maybe if we knew who they were, he'd stop fixating on the Mage so much.”

I frown. “He'd only fixate on them instead. You'd be replacing one fucked up backstory with another.”

“I suppose so. Unless…”

“What?”

“Unless it's not fucked up.”

“Bunce. Come on. Mages don't abandon their kids.”

“What if they were Normals?”

“It's not possible. You know it's not. And anyway, he still ended up in care, it's not going to be a happy ending. He's not Oliver Twist.”

“Well, what if they were magicians but they didn't want to give him up? What if they died, or he was kidnapped?”

“We'd know about it. It would be in the Record.”

“Nico wasn't in the Record.”

She's got me there. For a moment I see Nicodemus's face swimming in front of me, his tongue poking between his teeth, and I hold back a shudder. (I still haven't been back to Soho since that Christmas, just in case I run into more vampires.) (Yes, that does make it difficult to be young and gay in London.)

“Well, it's been lovely catching up, but I have a seminar to get to now.”

I stand. Bunce reaches forwards and catches my wrist. “No you haven't,” she says. “Your classes are over. You told me last week.”

“Fine. Then I'm done with this conversation. There's only so much Chosen One drama I can take.”

“You're not going to like my next idea then.”

I sit, because I am still a massive disappointment to myself. “Go on.”

She takes a deep breath. “I'm taking Simon to America and I think you should come with us.”

If my heart was beating, I think it would stop. “You’re _doing what?”_

“Just for a holiday! To visit Agatha. But we're going to fly to New York and hire a car so that Micah can come, and then we're going to drive to California.”

I stare at her. I'm too shocked to even raise an eyebrow.

“Road trip!” she sings, with half-hearted jazz hands.

“And you want me to come because…”

“Well I don't want  _Philippa_ to come.”

I snort. “That girl was boring even before she lost her voice.”

She slaps her palm down on the table gleefully. “That's what  _I_ said!”

I think about it for a moment. Bunce. Snow. The two people who once felt like coming home. I’ve been away for so long that I’ve started to worry I imagined it. Or that we weren’t as happy as I thought. Or that I was in a blissful sleep for three years of my life and now I’ve woken up to a nightmare; the reverse fairy tale that something like me probably deserves.

And. And, and, and. “Snow won't want me there. He dumped me, remember?”

“So you say.”

This time I do raise an eyebrow. “I think I would remember being dumped by the love of my life.”

She grins. “That right there is exactly why I want you to come. You'll say something dramatic and romantic, Simon will snog you, and you'll both be happy again. And then I can get some peace.”

She's insane. But I can't say the thought isn't appealing. “What did you mean  _so you say?”_

“Well, you've always said he dumped you -”

“He did.”

“- And Simon has always refused to tell me about it. But yesterday, after he was done talking about the Mage, he said something interesting.”

She pauses, and looks at me over the top of her ridiculous glasses. Crowley, and she calls me dramatic. “Well?” I snap.

“He said ‘no one ever comes back.’ He said everyone leaves eventually, and they don't come back. The Mage, Agatha, and he's still convinced I'm going to leave him to be with Micah.”

“You probably should,” I tell her, tilting my head to one side. As much as I love Snow, I sort of love Bunce too. She deserves to be happy. But she waves the comment away like a gnat.

“And then he said  _you._ He said  _you_ left and you didn't come back.”

She beams at me. I don't get it. “Well, he's right, isn't he?”

“But he wants you to! He admitted it!”

I sneer. “It's not a lot to go on.”

“There's more. I said, ‘in fairness, Simon, you told him not to.’ And he said ‘I never said that.’”

“So?”

“Well did he? Tell you not to come back?”

“... No.”

“Well then! Why don't you prove him wrong?”

My hands are shaking. I smooth back my hair, hoping it will keep them still. “It's not that easy.”

“Why not?”

It’s an excellent question. Why not? Why didn't I go back? It's not like I didn't want to. Almost every night for months, my feet would carry me to the wrong platform on the underground, trying to take me east to their flat instead of west to Fiona's. Trying to take me home.

I would turn around and go west.

Every night when I got to Fiona's, I would stare at the last text message he sent me (“piss off”) (he was flirting, not being being mean) (I'm 90% sure). I would wait for the ellipses to appear, wait for him to at least  _try_  to say something. That was all I needed - just three little dots. Just a small sign that he wanted to talk to me, even if he didn't have the words yet.

But it never came. So I didn't message him either.

After all, he was the one who said he didn't want me. I was clear (painfully, embarrassingly clear) that I wasn't going to change my mind. That I had chosen him, and either of us could walk away, but it wasn’t going to be me. That was our deal, and I stuck to my end of the bargain.

“It was his choice,” I say.

“I know,” Bunce says softly, and I must be doing a poor job of keeping my face blank, because she reaches out to pat my hand awkwardly. “But sometimes he makes very stupid choices.”

I laugh. I can't help it. I feel strangely lightheaded. Bunce laughs too, and for a moment it's like we're back in their flat ( _our_ flat) 12 months ago. I almost expect Snow to throw something at us and accuse us of bullying him.

“What about Philippa?” I ask, and Bunce looks pained.

**SIMON**

I know that Penny and Baz talk about me when they meet up. Sometimes I'll have a problem, and Penny will come home on a Wednesday evening and just casually drop the answer in my lap, like it's only just occurred to her.

_Have you considered writing your dissertation on Keats?_

_Did you leave your wallet at that doughnut place you like on Great Eastern Street?_

_Has it occurred to you that dumping your boyfriend was the biggest mistake of your life?_

Okay, maybe she hasn't said that last one. But I know she's thinking it.

Sometimes I think it too.

The truth is, I didn't really mean to break up with him. I was in a bad place. I thought I had been working on all my issues while I was at uni, but graduating dragged them back up again. Everyone kept asking me what I was doing with the rest of my life, and I didn't have an answer for them. I'm not the Chosen One any more. I can't do magic. I did an English degree for God's sake, I'm barely even qualified for any Normal jobs.

In that moment I was just a thick-as-shit orphan with a tail, and I hated the idea that Baz was stuck with me. Perfect Baz, with perfect grades, who always knew the perfect thing to say. He had his shit together. It was mad that he was with me. I didn’t deserve his loyalty or his devotion or whatever. So I tried to set him free.

It's hard to describe what it's like when I get like that. It's like when I used to go off - this haze comes over me and I'm no longer in control of what I do. Usually it's sadness: aching, terrible sadness, as deep as the hole that I poured all of my magic into that Christmas, and just as draining. Sometimes, though, it's anger. It was anger on that day. But I’m still not sure if I was angry with him, or me, or the whole world.

I do know that I didn't think he would  _actually go._ I definitely didn't think that I wouldn't hear a word from him for another 12 months. If it wasn't for Penny, I wouldn't even know he was still alive. He just… walked straight out of our flat and out of my life for good, like all that time he'd been waiting for me to release him of his promise. He didn't even put up a fight.

So I can only assume that deep down, he wanted to break up too. Of course he wouldn't do it himself; he never admits he's changed his mind. He was just biding his time until I caught up with him and ended things myself. That way I'll always be the one that ruined everything.

Typical.

Anyway, now I've been trying to figure out who I am when I'm not Baz Pitch's boyfriend (or Baz Pitch's nemesis).

Here's what I have so far:

  1. I like baking. I know this because I got a job at Hatzi’s bakery, down the road from our flat, just to earn some cash until I got a grown-up job, only I never left. I still haven't figured out how to make a scone that rivals Watford's, but I'm getting close. Sometimes I think it's ridiculous that the Chosen One should want to spend the rest of his life baking, but Penny says that's the Mage talking and I should listen to Ebb's voice instead. So I do. And if she could spend her life with goats, I can spend mine with buttercream.
  2. I am bisexual. I know this because I'm dating Philippa now. For a while I wasn't sure if I would ever fancy anyone again - I thought I might be Baz-sexual or something. He was too big, he blocked out any other option in my mind. But then I met Philippa again, and she is absolutely nothing like Baz. I can’t imagine two people more different. But she’s not different like Agatha was; I don’t think she’s my destiny or anything. I just like her, and I like being with her, and that’s enough.
  3. I like pop music. And romantic comedies from the 90s. And reality TV shows about food. In fact, I like a lot of stuff that Baz used to sneer and roll his eyes at. I used to think his opinions on culture were fact, because he was so confident in them. If Baz said a band was good, I'd think,  _well he plays the violin and he's been the opera and stuff, so he must know what he's on about._  But now I don't have to worry about that any more, I can just enjoy the things that make me happy. And it turns out that the things that make me happy are often the same things that Baz thinks are beneath him.



Admittedly, it's not much to go on. But I'm working on it.

When Penny comes back from her lunch with Baz, I'm still curled up on the sofa, but I've switched the telly over to an old season of Bake Off. I'm thinking about making bread. Sometimes Penny makes fun of my cupcakes (“they're so 2007”), but who doesn't like bread?

She flops down next to me, propping her feet up on my side. “Simon,” she begins, and I wonder what Baz has suggested this time. “I think we should go to America.”

I blink at her. Not what I was expecting. “To live?”

I know she wants to be with Micah, but I'm not sure he wants me cramping their style.

“No. For a holiday! To see Agatha! We're always saying we'll go, but we never do, and she invited us again yesterday.”

“What about my job?”

“Well there's this incredible thing called  _paid annual leave,_ Si. And get this - companies are legally required to give it to you!”

I flip her off. She pokes me with her foot.

“Come on. I've not got anything else to do this summer and I don't want to start job-hunting yet. It's too depressing.”

“When were you thinking?”

“Agatha says she has two rooms free this month. But I was thinking we pick up Micah and then drive across the country - you  _know_ she doesn't actually want us there the whole time.”

“I can't take a whole month off with no notice,” I protest, although I don't really know if that's true. Hatzi’s is owned by a sweet old couple who keep telling me I should have more fun and stop volunteering for so many shifts. They only hired someone because their daughter was nagging them to work less - they probably wouldn't mind me taking time off at all.

“We can't drive,” I tell her. But I don't really know why I'm still fighting this. It sounds kind of nice. And it probably wasn't anything to do with Baz, if Agatha suggested it.

“Micah drives,” she says. “And we can make stops along the way. Think of it - camping in the forest and real roadside motels, like in the movies!”

“People usually get murdered at motels in those movies.”

“I think two mages and the Chosen One can handle a bit of murder,” she scoffs. “Anyway, we haven't had a real adventure in  _ages._ Normal life is a bit boring without a proper bad guy to fight.”

Sometimes I think Penny’s the one who needs therapy. I open my mouth to argue some more, but she's got that blazing look in her eyes that means her mind is made up.

“I'll talk to Mrs Hatzi tomorrow,” I tell her. “Then we'll see.”

She grins at me, and reaches over to pat my arm. “Good boy,” she says. “Now change the channel. Who cares about bloody bread?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, Philippa. I honestly thought she was going to be a very minor character until I decided to write a little bit from her POV and she came out swinging. I am now obsessed with her. Soz.
> 
> Ps. Why am I so in love with Baz wearing purple? I don't know but I will literally never stop.


	3. Heathrow

_Well we know where we're going_  
_But we don't know where we've been_ _  
\- Talking Heads, Road To Nowhere_

**SIMON**

We get to Heathrow at six in the morning, and when I see Baz buying a coffee and a croissant in Pret, I assume I’m hallucinating.

“Pen,” I say, tugging on her sleeve.

“Yeah?” She’s yawning and searching for something in the other direction.

“There’s someone who looks _exactly_ like Baz over there…”

She spins around and follows my gaze, then grins. “Perfect! Well spotted.” She starts to make her way towards him.

“Er,” I say, still glued to the spot dumbly even as she goes inside, taps him on the shoulder and gives him a big hug. “What.”

She beckons me over, but I can’t move. Baz (fuck, it really is Baz) straightens and stares right at me.

It’s the first time we’ve seen each other in 12 months. He looks good. (Of course.) His hair is shoulder length, and he’s wearing it down the way I like it. ( _Used_ to like it, I mean.) He has dark jeans on, a white shirt that’s open at the neck, and a cream jacket with little violet roses all over it.

I’m wearing trackies and a faded black t-shirt that I’ve had since I first left Watford.

I don’t think he’s paying attention though. His eyes are boring right into mine, like he’s trying to set me on fire. I can’t tell if it’s the good kind of fire or the bad kind. I can’t tell if he’s happy to see me or not. He doesn’t look surprised - just… completely focused. Completely awake.

I shift uncomfortably, and start to wonder if I should join them. But what would I say to him? What do you say to the boy whose heart you broke? Who you broke your own heart over?

What’s he even doing here?

**BAZ**

Fuck. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I decided to come. Snow already looks like he’s about to go off. Probably the only reason he hasn’t punched me yet is that it’s six in the morning and he still hasn’t realised why I’m here. Yet.

“Did you tell him?” I mutter to Bunce.

“Nope!” she trills, and she strides back out to meet him. I follow.

He looks good, even in his abominable trackies and a t-shirt that I'm fairly sure used to be mine. His curls are an absolute mess, all dishevelled like he’s just woken up. (The sight of them allows some indecent memories to surface, because my brain loves to torture me.)

I’m glad I bought a coffee; I have no idea what to do with my hands. Or rather, I do - I want to grab him by the curls with one, strangle him with the other, and kiss him until he can't breathe. But I’m not allowed. I take a sip of my scalding hot mocha instead. He stares at it and I think he's jealous. (Too bad, Snow. You lost food sharing privileges when you ripped out my heart with your teeth.) (Metaphorically.)

“What are you doing here?” he blurts out angrily, finally ripping his eyes away from my coffee cup.

“Buying breakfast,” I say, raising an eyebrow, and Bunce punches me in the arm.

“Baz is coming with us!” she announces, slightly too loudly, and Snow’s mouth falls open.

“ _Why?_ What the hell, Penny?”

“It's nice to see you too, Snow,” I say. He ignores me.

“This wasn’t part of the plan. Does Agatha know he’s coming? Does Micah?”

“Why would Micah care?”

He ignores me again.

“Micah knows,” says Bunce, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “He’s grateful to have someone to share the driving with. It’s a 3,000-mile trip, you know. And Agatha will be happy to see him once we get there.”

“She only has two bedrooms!” Snow objects. His cheeks have gone all pink. “There’s no space.”

“I’m sure she'll offer you a sofa,” I tell him, taking another sip of coffee and enjoying the show.

“You get the sofa,” he snaps, and then he clenches his fists. “I mean - no - you’re not coming at all. _Penny.”_

“Yes?”

_“What is going on?”_

I take pity on him. “I'm starting a job in LA this summer. Bunce told me about your trip, and I decided to join you. We're all going to the same place. It's nothing personal.”

“You got a job in California?” He’s so surprised that he stops being angry for a moment. “The sunshine state? You're a vampire.”

I roll my eyes. “Say it a bit louder, Snow, some Normals in France didn't hear you.”

“Well why can't you fly there yourself?”

“I don't have to start for a couple of weeks. I thought I should get to know my new country. You know, I was going to do a trip like this last summer, but someone cancelled it. If only I could remember why.”

He looks like I've just kicked him in the gut. Good.

“I have a girlfriend now,” he tells me, because apparently he thinks me being a dick to him means I'm flirting. (He's right.)

“Congratulations,” I drawl. “It must be nice dating someone who's even worse at talking than you are.”

He clenches his fists again. His face goes a bit splotchy. There's a mole above his right eyebrow that I had almost forgotten, and seeing it again make me want to sit down and breathe into a paper bag for a while. “You're a horrible human being,” he says, temporarily forgetting that I am not a human being at all. Then he stalks off, barging through the glass doors of a nearby surfer shop.

“What in Merlin's name is he doing?” I wonder.

“What in Merlin's name are _you_ doing?” Bunce scolds, hitting me in the arm for the second time in five minutes. She's very violent for a pacifist. “How is pissing him off going to get him to like you again?”

I turn to look at her. “You _were_ present for our entire childhood?”

She groans. “You're ridiculous. You're both ridiculous.”

Snow comes back out of the shop. In his hand is a long, beaded necklace, with a large wooden cross dangling from the end. It's completely crass. He looks like he's about to go “catch some waves” and then get accidentally eaten by a shark.

He makes sure I'm watching as he pointedly brings it up over his head and nestles the crucifix against his chest.

**PENNY**

They are both so ridiculous.

**SIMON**

I can't believe Penny. I know she's still friends with Baz, so I guess I can see why she said yes when he wanted to join us. But she could have warned me first.

I mean, I didn't even do my hair this morning.

I buy a bacon sandwich for breakfast, and then two more sandwiches to eat for lunch on the plane. Then Penny realises she forgot to bring her US plug adaptors, and we tear the airport apart looking for some new ones. All the while, Baz is sitting in the waiting area, reading a book and nibbling tiny bits of his pastry like a hamster with fangs. I pretend he's not there.

(He's reading Norwegian Wood by Murakami, if you were interested.) (Not that I am.)

I actually really like airports. Penny thinks I'm crazy, but I like how huge they are, and I like that the shops are all shinier, cleaner versions of the shops you're used to at home. I also like how tight the security is. (Thankfully it turns out that Penny's spell also works on full body scanners, so the guards can't see my wings.) It feels safe here.

Baz argues that that's just my white privilege talking, and also if Penny can fool the guards then another mage could probably do the same, so it's not _really_ safe at all.

“Well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?” I ask. I'm trying to make a point about him always plotting something and generally looking shifty, but I'm not sure it really lands because Penny is the one who broke the rules. He just raises an eyebrow at me. Wanker.

When it's finally time to board, Penny claims the window seat, which means I end up stuck between her and Baz. This seems a bit unfair to me, because she's the one who actually wants him here, but she's already got her nose pressed to the glass. We haven't even taken off yet.

“I love flying,” she admits happily. “Normals are so clever. You don't have to be in love to make it happen, or risk ripping out your lungs with bad spellwork. You just need cold, hard engineering.”

“And wings,” I add. My own wings and tail are incredibly uncomfortable squashed into the middle seat. If we were still dating I would have put my tail in Baz's lap to keep it out of the way, maybe wrapped my wings around them both. But I can't do that anymore, so they're all scrunched up behind and beneath me. I wriggle a bit, but it doesn't help.

“Well, I don't really fancy being carried across the Atlantic by you, Simon. You can't exactly stop for snacks in the ocean,” Penny says.

“What about the fish?”

“Are you going to eat raw fish, Snow?” sneers Baz.

“What do you think sushi is?”

He just looks at me, then pulls out his book and starts to read. I decide to call that one-nil to me.

I wish I had brought a better book along though. Something intellectual. I only have The Hunger Games, and I know he’d make fun of me for being a YA cliche if he saw it. There’s a games console in my backpack, but I won’t be able to turn it on until we’re in the air - it would be just my luck if I accidentally fried the whole navigation system because I wanted to play Mario Kart. Plus, Baz is the worst backseat gamer. He never plays himself (“too juvenile”) but he’s always chipping in with little comments. (“Really, Snow, you’re going to be _Princess Peach_ again?”)

He probably won’t pay attention to me this time. I hope not, anyway. Katniss and Mario Kart are my only options if I don’t want to be bored the whole flight.

Or talking to Baz, I guess. I haven’t got a clue what he’s been up to this year, and I have a million questions. Like: what’s this fancy California job? How did his Masters go? Why did he wear skinny jeans on a five-hour flight? How’s Mordelia? Has the magic returned to Pitch Manor yet? (There was a flicker of it when we broke up. I hope it’s back properly now.)

Also: did he miss me at all? Did he ever think about trying to win me back? Why didn’t he ever text me?

I used to stare and stare at our old messages, just waiting for him to start typing, but he never did. Why didn’t he want to have the last word? He always has the last word. The only time he doesn’t is when he leaves the silence hanging to point out how stupid I’m being, which in itself is sort of like getting the last word. The non-verbal last word.

I’m not going to talk to him. I’ll just talk to Penny instead.

Except, all I want to talk to Penny about is Baz, but I can’t.

I’ll just be quiet.

**BAZ**

This is unbearable. Snow is obviously agitated. He hasn’t had a chance to confront Bunce about why I’m here yet, and she engineered everything so that he’d end up sitting next to me. I’m not sure I’m particularly grateful for that. It’s a bit like being thrown into the ocean after a year without water, not least because I still can’t drink anything.

He keeps wriggling and biting his lip, tapping his fingers on the armrest and sighing loudly, every sound and movement a production, his body a theatre with no intermission. Maybe I should pretend to go to sleep, just so he’ll relax a little and talk to Bunce. It might help with the jetlag on the other side.

Not yet though. I’m not going to give him what he wants straight away. Not when I can torture him a little first. So I keep reading my book, turning the pages slowly, even though I’m barely registering the words.

It's worse when the plane finally takes off. Snow hates confined spaces and not having a quick exit route - so flying is a bit of a nightmare for him. He gets more and more anxious as we hurtle down the runway, and if we were still dating I would already be holding his hand by this point. Bunce is completely useless - she's staring out of the window like she's never been on a plane before.

Although I'm still pretending to read, I can see that he's screwed up his eyes and his chest is heaving. Is he going to have a panic attack right now?

“Snow, are you still afraid of flying?” I growl, just loud enough for him to hear over the engines. He snaps his eyes open and stares blankly at me.

The plane lifts up in the air, and my stomach flips.

“You have wings for Crowley's sake.”

Something clicks into place behind Snow's eyes, and he's back. “Says the vampire who's afraid of the dark,” he mutters, and he's blushing but at least he’s breathing normally again. He reaches into his backpack, pulls out his Nintendo, and loads Mario Kart. (He still plays as Princess Peach.)

I go back to my book.

I should never have let Bunce book our seats together. I should have bought my own in first class, and left them to sweat back here by themselves. It’s not like we aren’t going to be spending plenty of time in cramped conditions together over the next couple of weeks.

At least Snow has calmed down. By the time the flight attendants bring lunch over, he’s already eaten two sandwiches, rustling the packets and swallowing extravagantly. He asks for a chicken casserole anyway, and he and Bunce chat about the states we’ll be driving through on the way to California. I watch them out of the corner of my eye.

“I don’t know that much about the rest of America,” Snow admits. ( _Quelle surprise._ ) “All the stuff in the middle is a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? You never really see it on TV.”

“I think it will be fascinating,” says Penny, pushing her glasses up her nose. “You only ever hear about the stereotypes of hillbillies and racism, but each state has such a strong sense of identity. Their politics are just as varied and complex as anywhere else.”

“Are you worried?” asks Simon. “A gay, a bisexual and a brown girl driving through Trump country with foreign accents?”

“ _British_ accents,” Bunce reminds him. “It’s hardly the same. Anyway, Micah can do the talking if you’re uncomfortable.” She pokes him in the side. “How will they know you’re bi, anyway? You’ll be Skyping your girlfriend every five minutes.”

Snow blushes. “You never know. It might - oh _shit,_ Penny!”

“What?”

“I forgot to text Philippa before we took off. I was going to check in to let her know we’re okay…”

Crowley, he really is a terrible boyfriend. I note, smugly, that he never forgot to text _me_ about what he was doing. I used to get a minute-by-minute live stream of his entire day, from the moment we were apart right up until we were together again. **_Just bought doughnuts! This lecture is boooooring. Saw a great dog in the park, look! (Photo attached.)_ ** There’s no way he’d get on an aeroplane without texting me his seat number, the pilot’s name, and how many babies were in the immediate vicinity.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Bunce reassures him. “What does she think is going to happen, anyway? It’s just a flight.”

“Yeah… I just promised, that’s all…”

“Well, you can text her when you land. If you make it through immigration that is… do you think border patrol will be able to tell that you like kissing boys sometimes?”

“Shut up. They don’t care about that.” He pauses. “Right? I would have heard about it on the news.”

This conversation is excruciating, so I put my book away and pretend to go to sleep.

“Oh, hey Baz?” It’s Snow.

“Yes?”

“Are you done with your lunch?”

I open my eyes. He’s looking at me hopefully, eyeing my unopened pudding. I wave my hand permissively. “Try not to choke on it,” I say, but I don’t sound as mean as I intended, and for a moment he smiles at me, and for a moment it’s almost like - but then it’s gone.

I close my eyes. I'm more tired than I thought, because I drop off to the sound of the two of them whispering together. I don’t even remember to listen to find out if they’re whispering about me.

When I wake up, the pilot is telling us she’s about to start the descent.

And there’s a head on my shoulder. Simon’s head. He must have conked out soon after me, because his curls are tickling my nose and all I can smell is chocolate and aftershave.

I bought him that aftershave.

It smells like smoke and vanilla.

I want to set myself on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny's POV in this chapter is my POV in every chapter I write.


	4. New York

_Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer_  
_Everybody here was someone else before  
_ _\- Taylor Swift, Welcome To New York_

 

**PENNY**

Micah is waiting for us outside the airport, holding a sign that says “Penelope and friends”. He’s drawn a smiley face in the “o” of my name, and I love him for it.

Plus, it’s nice that Simon and Baz, the tragicomic heroes of my life, have been relegated to being _my_ sidekicks for once. (Baz is the tragedy; Simon is the comedy.) (Most of the time.)

It's been about six months since Micah last came to see me for Christmas in London with Simon, so I run towards him and throw myself into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing him like Martine McCutcheon and Hugh Grant at the end of Love Actually.

(The three of us watched it at Christmas. Simon was riddled with guilt over the fact that I spent it with Micah and him rather than my family, even though looking after him was the perfect excuse to _escape_ the insane Bunce bonanza.) (Of course I couldn't say that to _Simon_ , because he has no family insane or otherwise, and it was his first Christmas without the creepy in-laws who once plotted to murder him, so he was a bit out of sorts.)

“Good flight?” Micah asks, when I give him a moment to breathe.

“Great flight!” I lean in and whisper, “Simon fell asleep on Baz. My plan is going so well.”

“And here I thought you came all this way just to see me.”

“No you didn’t,” I say, and he grins at me, his dimple popping and his eyes crinkling behind his thick-framed hipster glasses, so I have to kiss him again.

 _Micah._ With his broad shoulders and strong arms and sensible shoes.

It’s getting harder and harder to keep living an ocean apart from him. I’ve known since we were 13 that I would propose to him one day. I knew it like I knew Simon was going to be my best friend. Like it wasn’t even my decision, it was magic and the stars and the five fundamental forces all coming together at once to tell me: this person. This is the person you care about now. It was like when the crucible cast me together with Trixie, only this time I couldn’t argue with the universe’s taste. Even if it _had_ been my choice, I would have chosen the two of them anyway.

Being 13, of course, I didn’t quite realise what I was getting myself into when I obeyed the laws of physics and committed myself to an American for all eternity. I didn’t know that it meant a lifetime of worrying about visas and citizenship, or that in the almost ten years we’ve been together we have probably only spent two in each other’s company.

I was going to do my Masters in Yale this year. I had the offer from them and everything. Simon and Baz were talking about getting a place together, Micah was looking at jobs in Connecticut, I had started all the paperwork. I hadn’t actually _told_ Simon yet, as I wanted to be sure it would happen before breaking it to him, but I was close.

And then… Simon. How could I leave him right when he was at his lowest? After his parents, the Mage, Agatha, and now Baz - how could I abandon him too? Agatha might think I’m an idiot, but if Micah has one half of my heart then Simon has the other, and there’s nothing I can do about that.

Still, it was hard. And Micah and I fought about it a lot. I don’t think he really forgave me until he came at Christmas and saw how sad Simon still looked for himself. That’s when he knew: no matter how much you want to be with one person, sometimes others just need you more. One doesn’t take away from the other.

“What’s another year?” I asked him back then. “We’ve already done so many. What’s one more on top of that?”

He won’t wait forever though. More importantly, _I_ won’t wait forever either. That’s why I need this plan to work. There’s only one other person on this planet that I trust to look after Simon when I’ve moved, and it’s not Philippa Stainton.

I bury my head in Micah’s neck and breathe deeply, inhaling the familiar scent of his magic: ginger and paprika, surprisingly spicey for someone so steady.

It feels good to be home.

**SIMON**

Penny and Micah look so happy, something in my heart pangs a little. _I miss that,_ I think.

Then I remember that I have it, and I still haven’t texted Philippa. Baz sneers at me when I get my phone out, but I’m not sure what his problem is, so I just ignore him. (I accidentally fell asleep on his shoulder on the plane, but I don’t think he noticed; he was still sleeping when I woke up.)

**_Hi! We’ve landed safe. So, funny thing, guess who’s coming with us?_ **

No, I can’t send that.

**_Hi! We’ve landed safe. I don’t want to freak you out or anything but_ **

Nope, definitely worse.

**_Hi! We’ve landed safe. Baz is here too!!!!_ **

Does that sound angry, or excited? Probably excited. Maybe I should add an angry face emoji to make it clearer. But what if she thinks I’m not taking it seriously?

**_Hi! We’ve landed safe. Penny and Micah are being adorable. (Picture attached)_ **

There. I’ll tell her later, when I’ve had time to get the words right. At the moment I feel too agitated; probably because we were on the flight for so long, or maybe because I don’t like lying to people. (Not that I’m lying to her exactly.) (But not telling the whole truth is sort of like lying, isn’t it? When it’s something important?)

We’ve never really talked about Baz before. She knows I dated him. It would be hard not to; Penny drops him into conversations sometimes, and anyway I’m pretty sure everyone in the World of Mages knows. (Just because Philippa can’t do magic anymore, doesn’t mean she’s banished. She’s like me; there but not there. Inside and out. Always watching, never taking part.)

But we never really spoke about why we broke up. I mean, he’s the reason she lost her voice to begin with. I don’t think she needs to hear that he’s sorry. Not unless he decides to tell her himself. And I don’t really think girls want to hear the story of their new boyfriend’s ex, especially when that story is a twisted Halloween Romeo and Juliet with extra murder.

Besides, it was nice having one relationship in my life that wasn’t about Baz. It was nice to know that she wasn’t thinking about how much better off I was when he was around. She remembered who I was _before_ all that started, and when we met again it was over. Sometimes I could pretend it had never happened at all.

Until now. How is she going to feel about me spending the next few weeks with the guy who stole her voice?

How am _I_ going to feel about it it?

“So,” Micah says, as Penny finally lets go of him and drops to the ground. She has already shrunk our luggage to pocket size with **out of sight, out of mind.** “We’re not picking up the car until four. We have time for some sightseeing first if you want? Where do you guys want to go?”

“Simon should choose,” Penny says, smiling at me. “He’s the only one who hasn’t been here before.”

Micah and Baz look at me expectantly.

Right. We're in New York City. We're on holiday. I haven't been kidnapped or sent on a life-and-death mission, I'm here to have fun. With my friends. Or, two of my friends and my ex-boyfriend who is here on a work trip (???) of some kind. It’s not that weird.

What do people do in New York? I try to think of what I've seen in movies. Sometimes they go to the statue of liberty and look up their ancestors in a book - except I don't know who my ancestors are, and they probably aren't in America, otherwise I would be American too.

They go to the Empire State Building? Except I just spent five hours on a plane and it nearly gave me a panic attack, so I'm probably not ready to be thousands of metres in the air again.

What else? Penny probably wants to go to a museum or an art gallery. But I want to be _outside_.

I bet Baz would know the right place to go. He always knows the trendiest bar in every city; the hidden gems or up-and-coming places that normal tourists like me walk straight past. I can't ask him though. He'd just sneer and call me co-dependent or something.

I can feel myself starting to panic. This happens sometimes, since Watford. Decisions - even small decisions like what to do on holiday - start to stress me out for no reason. My therapist thinks it's because so many people expected me to make life-and-death decisions during my childhood that now I treat every choice like a crisis. It's normal for people who have gone through trauma, she says. Our bodies are still on high alert all the time; we got stuck in fight or flight mode. I have to learn to stop being afraid of getting the wrong answer, because sometimes there are only right answers.

Except that now Baz is looking at me like I've _already_ got the wrong answer, and he's right, I had a choice and I blew it and now I can't take it back because he hates me again, but _why is he here_ if he feels that way?

“Simon,” comes Penny's voice. I hadn't realised I'd closed my eyes. “It's okay. Whatever you want is fine.”

She's right; I'm being an idiot. Decision time.

**BAZ**

Times bloody Square. Of course he wants to go to Times bloody Square on a Saturday. And people call _me_ a monster.

I would have taken him to the High Line, if he'd asked my opinion. It's outdoors, it's not too crowded, and he always gets a kick out of things that used to be other things.

I might have been wrong though, because even with approximately eight million tourists jostling him with their obnoxious children, and ticket sellers trying to rip him off with off-Broadway productions of Please Give Us Attention: The Musical, and living statues that I would be perfectly happy to make un-living if I thought I could avoid the ensuing legal drama, his eyes light up like someone plugged him directly into the sun.

“Penny - look at all the lights!”

Bunce catches my eye and grins, so I sneer at her, and then Snow drags her off to climb the steps and take selfies. I'm left behind with the American.

“They look really happy,” he says, avoiding my eyes so that I can pretend he was talking to himself if I want to. I like this about Micah. He doesn't say much, but unlike Snow he always chooses his words carefully.

“Yes, well, Snow has always been a bit basic.”

Micah snorts. “It’s been a while since I saw him smile like that. Penelope's plan might work.”

Crowley, even the American knows why I'm really here. I can't blame Bunce for telling him, but the knowledge sends a sudden stab of panic through my chest. What if I can’t do it? What if Snow is smiling because he really is happy with his silent new girlfriend? Worse still - what if he finds out we’re all plotting behind his back?

For the first time since I laid eyes on him at Heathrow, I’m starting to regret coming with them. I should have just let him enjoy a simple holiday. Having me around is obviously making him anxious. I should have left him alone the way he told me to, instead of trying to insert myself back into his story when he made it clear our chapter was over.

I should go home. I should tell him I’m getting a flight to my new job after all, and then fly straight back to London and spend the summer with my parents at Pitch Manor. Or maybe I should finally fly to Egypt to see where my mother is from, the way we’d planned last year.

I can’t keep waiting for him to want to come with me.

I watch him laughing with Bunce as they snap pictures and pull stupid faces together. He sees someone dressed as Buzz Lightyear, and his eyes light up even more. He loves those stupid movies. He goes up to him and asks to take a picture, even though he'll probably be charged $100 for it. Bunce follows behind, shaking her head.

I once read that it costs $1 million to buy advertising on one of the billboards in this square. The lights are so bright that at night you can even see them from space.

Simon is brighter than every single one of them.

“Tell me about the car,” I say to Micah, making my decision. “What are we driving?”

“It’s a Prius,” Micah says. I wait for him to start laughing, but he doesn't.

“No,” I say. “We are not driving all the way to California in a sensible family car. Absolutely not.”

“Penelope said you wouldn’t like it,” Micah acknowledges with a shrug.

I sigh. “Penelope likes to test me.” I whip out my phone and start scrolling through my contacts, searching for one of my father’s friends in New York. “Luckily, I excel at passing tests - hello, is that Hugo? It’s Basilton Grimm-Pitch speaking, we met at last year’s gala for the Magical Renovation Society. That’s right, Malcolm’s boy. I have a small favour to ask you...”

I step away from Micah, hoping to get out of earshot in case my confidence in Malcolm’s connections prove unfounded. But Hugo pulls through - and by the time Snow and Bunce join us again, everything is in place.

“I love it here,” Snow declares to no one in particular. “It's even better than everyone says.”

I can't help myself. _“How?”_

He blushes a little, but he thrusts his chin forwards defiantly like he's ready to fight me on it. “I like all of the people,” he says. “We’re not all anti-social monsters, you know.”

As he is saying this, a tourist knocks into me on their way to join the ticket queue, and I growl at them. They don’t notice.

Bunce snorts, and then loops her arm through the American's, resting her head on his shoulder comfortably. Their happiness makes me want to kick things. “Micah, where are we picking the car up?” she asks.

I clear my throat. “Actually, I've taken over transportation duties for this trip. If Snow is done ogling electricity like it’s 1879, you can follow all me.”  
  
I stride off through the crowds towards the nearest subway steps, unable to deal with Snow eyeballing me suspiciously a moment longer. I assume they will keep up. (And they do.)  
  
By the time we've taken a train to a garage in the Upper East side, I can tell I've got everybody's wands in a twist.  
  
“What have you done, Basil?” Bunce keeps asking. “Where are we going?” I ignore her.  
  
“Are you Mike?” I ask the mechanic, who is working under the hood of a gorgeous turquoise '66 Mustang convertible. (I'm not one of those tedious petrolheads who talk about cars like they want to fuck them, but I do have good taste.)  
  
“Sure am,” he says, straightening up and holding out an oily hand. “You Hugo's friend?”  
  
I nod and take his hand, making a mental note to spell myself clean again before I accidentally stain my jacket. “I am. Thank you for seeing us at such short notice.”  
  
“Hey, no worries - I was just finishing her up. She's ready for an adventure. You kids going out West?”  
  
“California,” I confirm.  
  
“Wait,” says Snow, looking from me to Mike to the car.  
  
“It's a hell of a trip,” says Mike. “You driven a vintage model before?”  
  
“A few times,” I say.  
  
“Well, she moves like a dream. You'd think she was built yesterday.”  
  
“Baz,” says Bunce. “We can't afford this.”  
  
I glance at her. “Lucky for you, only one of us has to.”  
  
Mike grins at me, fishes the keys from his pocket, and tosses them over. I catch them easily. Snow's mouth drops open.  
  
“No need to thank me,” I tell them, raising an eyebrow.

Bunce grins. “Don’t worry, we won’t.” And then she throws her arms around me. “Thank you.”

It feels... strange to be hugged again. I don't normally go around hugging my friends like some sort of hippy. And my family isn't exactly the touchy-feely type; even the twins greet me with a cool nod these days.

It's nice though. Bunce gives hugs the same way she does everything else: fiercely and intensely, and it makes me soften a little in return. Just a little. “All right,” I say, patting her on the back gently. “No need to make a scene.”

She lets go and beams up at me, then opens the door and clambers into the back. “Ooh! Leather seats!”

I sort out the paperwork with Mike, and when we're done, the three of them are all sitting in the car waiting for me. Snow has shotgun, but he doesn't look happy about it; he's glaring at the dashboard like it's personally offended him.

I slide into the drivers seat, adjusting my mirrors and familiarising myself with all the switches and levers. I test out the clutch and the brake; they're both nice and springy. I lean across Snow to adjust the mirror on his side, and I hear him hold his breath.

Then I shift back to my own seat, turn on the radio, and twist the key in the ignition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I learned everything I know about What Cars Are Cool from the Princess Diaries movie, and so did Baz.


	5. Washington DC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a British person who has only ever been to New York, everything road trip related is now based on extensive research via Google, YouTube, stalking places on street view, various blogs and the media at large. I'm sorry if I get something wrong! Let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to fix it. For now: onwards.

_Even the noise you make when you sleep_  
_Can't swim across a river so deep_ _  
\- Arcade Fire, Keep The Car Running_

 

**SIMON**

It takes four hours to drive to Washington DC, where we're staying in a cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city. I half expect Baz to pull another rich boy trick and announce that he's bought us rooms in the White House or something. But I think he's jet lagged because he doesn't say anything about the cheap red carpets or the weird onion smell. He just goes right up to reception and asks for our keys.

“It's booked under Bunce,” Penny says, hurrying after him.

“That's two double rooms?” asks the girl at the desk.

“Er,” says Penny, glancing at me warily. “Can one of them be a twin?” 

“It says two doubles here,” says the girl. She looks bored. She pulls out four room keys and slides them onto the desk.

“Can you change it?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Well… are there any spare rooms?”

“Sorry, doll. We're all booked up.”

“Penny!” I glare at her. “Why did you only book two rooms?”

“I didn't know Baz was coming at the time!”

Baz heaves an almighty sigh. “For Crowley's sake, Snow, I'm not going to throttle you in your sleep. We're not twelve anymore.”

The receptionist blinks slowly. “It’s two single beds pushed together,” she admits eventually. “You can move one if you want.”

“Perfect,” Baz snarls, and he grabs a key from the desk and stalks off towards the lift. 

“Thanks,” I tell her, trying to sound polite. She's probably doing her best. I take a key and put it in my pocket, where I can feel my tiny shrunken suitcase. I'll have to remember to ask Penny to make it a normal size again before bed.

“What are you guys doing now?” I ask her and Micah as we step away from the desk and into the foyer. They spent the whole journey in the backseat of the car, whispering and looking in love, which meant I had to sit up front with Baz in silence. I hope that tomorrow we'll get to swap around a bit. Maybe Micah can drive, and Penny will sit with me.

“I know we've been up for hours, but I'm still kind of wired,” Penny says, putting her arm around Micah's waist and bobbing up and down on her toes. “I think we'll get a drink and a snack at the bar before bed.”

“Want to join us?” Micah asks. He sounds genuine - he's a good bloke - but even as he says it he's looking down at Penny with this _look_ , like she's the most incredible thing in the universe, and suddenly I feel like I should give them space. They haven't really been alone together yet, I guess. They're just too nice to tell me to piss off.

“It's okay,” I say, and they try not to look relieved. “I’ll just go for a walk, and find some food outside.”

“Have you got money with you?” asks Penny.

“Yeah. Stop worrying about me, I'll be fine.”

“Okay. See you later then.”

I head outside and eventually stumble across an indoor food market, with a place selling amazing looking burritos. I buy two crispy pork specials to take away, and then find a bench in a scruffy park. DC hasn't impressed me so far, if being I'm honest. It feels a bit like the outskirts of some of the towns I lived in while I was in care, only with better Mexican food. It's weird to think that so many important people live here.

Once I'm done eating, I take out my phone and Facetime Philippa. She answers in her pyjamas in bed, and that's when I realise my mistake.

“Hi - oh shoot, what time is it there?”

She rubs her eyes and holds up a single finger. _One._ I'm a terrible boyfriend. 

“Christ, sorry, did I wake you up? Should I let you sleep?” 

She shakes her head, smiling and putting her phone in its stand on her bedside table so her hands are free to sign. I'm glad she can talk. She’s wearing blue flannel pyjamas, and her long curly hair is even thicker and bigger than usual, pushed back out of her eyes with a sleep mask. I can feel some of the day's anxiety starting to slip away already. (I have a life outside Baz and Penny and all the things that happened to us. I have a future that I built by myself. When they leave me, I won’t be on my own.)

“It’s really good to see you,” I say. “This has been the longest day ever.”

 _How are you?_ she signs. My sign language is still basic, and sometimes it’s easier for her to use a pen and paper, but I’m getting a lot better.

“I’m okay,” I say, slumping back in the bench. “Kind of overwhelmed. It was a long flight, and we’ve already driven to DC, _and_ we saw Times Square. Which was great! But it’s a lot, you know?”

 _Is Penny being annoying?_ she asks, grinning, and I smile and shake my head. I guess they’ve never really hit it off.

“No. She’s good. She and Micah are really cute actually. But… I do have something to tell you.”

She frowns and waves her finger side to side, which means _what?_

“Er. There’s someone else here with us. Penny kind of sprung it on me without asking; I guess he needed a ride with us.”

She moves her finger in a circle, which means _who?_

“Er. Well. Don’t worry about it or anything, it’s nothing weird. I’m certainly not happy about it. I wish it wasn’t happening actually. It’s. Ah. I guess it is kind of weird.”

She widens her eyes and circles her finger even faster. _Who??_

“It’s Baz. Basilton. Pitch. Grimm-Pitch.” I don’t know why I keep saying more and more of his name; it’s not like we know anyone else named Baz. I only just stop myself from stuttering out _Tyrannus._

She is silent for a moment. Then she wags her finger and slides her two hands together in L shapes. She mouths it so I get the full picture. _What the fuck?_

“I know. It’s fucked up. I don’t know what Penny was thinking. Apparently he’s got some sort of job in LA, but he hasn’t told me what it is yet, and you know he and Penny are still friends, so I guess she said he could come with us, or maybe he asked if he could, I’m not really sure. I didn’t know until we got to the airport. I don’t know. Philippa - I’m sorry. Nothing’s - nothing’s going on. It’s weird. And stressful. And I’m kind of pissed at Penny, a little. But she was trying to be nice, I think. I’m not sure. Maybe she just wasn’t thinking? But that’s not like her.”

One problem with dating someone who can't talk is that she can’t interrupt me when I start babbling. I just go on and on, digging myself further into the hole. Eventually she holds up a hand to stop me.

 _It’s okay,_ she signs. _I believe you._

I exhale, closing my eyes and counting to five like my therapist taught me when I need to calm down. “Thanks,” I say. I open my eyes again, because it’s not really fair to keep them closed.

_What will you do?_

I shrug. “Try not to get into a fight? Try to enjoy the holiday anyway? I don’t really know.”

_Have you talked to him?_

I shake my head. “Not properly. Just… bitching, I guess. We're acting fourteen again. You remember what we were like back then? Always trying to piss each other off.” 

_Flirting?_

I think about it. Baz has barely said two words to me, besides insults, the entire day. And his insults haven't been funny or old in-jokes or anything. They're just mean. “No. I don’t think so. Not for me.”

She rolls her eyes. _You can never see someone flirting._

“That’s not true!”

This time she doesn’t even need to sign, she just gives me this piercing look, like _really?_

I remember how long it took me to realise she was flirting with me in the bakery. Eventually she got so impatient that she held up a notepad saying _Dear Simon. Do you want to date me?_ There were two check boxes below, with options for _yes_ and _no_ . She signed it, _Sincerely, Philippa._

I didn't know sign language back then, so she used the notebook a lot. The way she wrote that note really made me laugh. It wasn't mean flirting, it was sweet and funny (and so un-Baz-like) and I realised that I _did_ want to date her. Once we’d been out a few times, she admitted that she’d liked me when we were teenagers too, but I’d been too blind to notice.

Of course, the year she liked me was also the year I was following Baz around obsessively, so I guess I was a little preoccupied.

“Okay, maybe it’s a little bit true. But I’m on high alert this time. And I _don’t_ want to flirt with him back. I’m with you now.”

She nods, her lips pursed. _And don’t you forget it._ For a split second I think she’s seriously threatening me, but then she laughs, and I do too, and things are okay.

She starts telling me about her Saturday - how annoying her mum is being, and how she went to see a movie with some friends, and then all about the movie. By the time we’re done, the anxiety is gone and I'm ready to go back to the hotel.

“Thanks for waking up,” I say. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

She smiles, and nods, and signs _good night._

We haven’t said I love you yet. Sometimes I wonder if she wants to. Sometimes I wonder if _I_ want to. I’m not really sure what’s normal though. Baz and I went from hate to love so quickly, it was sort of like they’d been the same thing all along. Plus, there was a lot of trauma all mixed up in the middle. I’m not really sure how a non-doomed, winged-boy-meets-magically-mute-girl story is supposed to go.

She hangs up before I can make up my mind. 

The exhaustion hits me all at once, and I briefly consider just sleeping on this bench rather than returning to our room. But Penny would panic if she couldn't find me in the morning, so instead I drag myself up and across the road back to the hotel.

Baz is already asleep when I get in, thank Christ. He's turned all the lights off, so I have to fumble around for the torch on my phone until I can turn on a bedside lamp.

With a bit of light, I can see that he's pulled one of the single mattresses out of the bed frame and chucked it on the floor for me with a pillow and a blanket. It's annoying, until I realise that I would have done this anyway, so really he's just saved himself the bother of me waking him.

There's just one problem - my toothbrush and all my stuff is in my tiny suitcase, and I don't have the magic to make it big again. I hadn't been able to find Penny or Micah in the bar on my way up, and I'm certainly not knocking on their door the first night of their reunion.

“Baz,” I whisper hopefully. He doesn't move. “Baz!” I poke him in the shoulder. Still nothing. He's such a deep sleeper - we both are, when we're free of nightmares. I shake him. _“Baz!”_

He jumps awake with a shout, fangs bared. He's shirtless. He looks fit. Not fit like hot - fit like he's been working out and playing a lot of football.

“Sorry!” I stutter. “Sorry!”

“What the fuck - _Simon._ What?”

“Sorry. It's just. Don’t you have a t-shirt or something?”

He rubs his eyes, and his fangs recede. “You woke me up for that?”

“Uh, no. No, I need help. With magic. My case. And. Toothbrush.” _Find your words, Simon._ I take a deep breath and start again. “Please will you undo Penny's shrinking spell so I can brush my teeth and go to bed?”

He looks at me for a long moment, and then reaches under his pillow for his wand. (Since when did he sleep with his wand under his pillow?)

“Where is it?” he grunts. I pull it from my pocket and hold it out to the side. “ **As you were.** ”

The suitcase jumps out of my hand and springs back to its full size again.

“Thanks,” I say.

He doesn't say anything. He just puts his wand back under his pillow and flings himself under the covers.

I can barely keep my eyes open as I clean my teeth and pull on pyjamas. (We can't _both_ be shirtless.) Then I crash into the floor nest Baz made for me and pass out.

**PENNY**

Simon comes to find me at breakfast, as I am trying to improve the world's driest toast with my third little plastic pack of butter.

“We need to talk about Baz,” he says, wringing his hands and looking a little manic. (Talk about deja vu.)

I point my butter knife at him. “Wait don't tell me - you think he's plotting something? You think he might be a vampire? You followed him to the Catacombs last night and you're fairly sure you caught him drinking the blood of a rat, but maybe he was just talking to it because he's a massive creepy goth?”

“Hilarious.” He sits down opposite me, and takes a slice of toast from the rack. Brave boy. “What's he doing here, Pen?”

I've been waiting for this. We didn't have a minute alone yesterday, but I could still feel the interrogation brewing. I shrug. “He needs a ride to California.”

“Right. But why didn't he get a plane?”

“Because he wants a holiday?”

“But why with us?”

“We're friends! You know we've kept in touch.”

He looks exasperated. “You know what I mean - why with _me_? Why come on a road trip with me when I didn't even hear from him for an entire year? What's he planning?” 

I can't keep lying to him. But I can't tell him that it was all my idea either. Whenever I've tried to talk to him about making up with Baz in the past, he's refused to hear it. How can I explain that I've tricked him for his own good without sounding like… well, like the Mage? 

“He's not planning anything,” I say, which is true as far as I know. “He just misses you.”

The look that crosses Simon's face breaks my heart. Regret, sadness, shame - nothing that I ever wanted him to feel again.

“Do you think he wants us to get back together?” he asks, and I perk up for a moment, until he adds: “because you know I'm with Philippa. It's too late for that. But I don't want to hurt him again.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Not about hurting him - about Philippa?”

“Yes,” he insists. “I've told you that already. I know you don't like her, but you've never given her a chance. She makes me happy. Everything with Baz was always so… intense.”

“He didn't make you happy?” I try to ask this as gently as I can. He's shifting uncomfortably in his seat, like he's wondering whether to bolt, but _finally_ we're getting somewhere.

“He did. But he made me angry sometimes too. It was so… all or nothing all the time, you know?”

“Not all the time,” I say, thinking of the many nights we spent watching movies with takeaway. “We had fun together. All three of us.”

Simon slumps forwards and buries his face in his arms. I reach out and run my fingers through his curls, the way I've been doing since we were kids. “We did,” he admits, so quietly that I almost miss it. “I know you miss him. I miss him too. But I don't know if we can be friends. We were never friends.”

This is true, of course. They were enemies and they were boyfriends, and sometimes it felt like they were both at the same time. But even though Simon makes friends with every stranger and dog he meets, I'm not sure he can do the same with Baz now, after everything.

That doesn't mean they can't be boyfriends again though.

“Just… give him a chance,” I say. “If you don't antagonise him, maybe he won't antagonise you.”

Simon lifts his head in order to give me the full stink eye. “Have you met him?”

“Yes. And it's a defence mechanism, Si. He's sliding back into his old habits because you are too. You have to show him you don't want that. Find some middle ground.” 

“Do we _have_ middle ground? It's not like we can joke about old times. _Hey, remember when you pushed me down the stairs? What about the time I dumped you? Crazy days!”_  

“Well, no, obviously that would be stupid. But you must have things in common. What did you talk about for four years?” 

He shrugs. “Stuff.”

Honestly. Baz is the easiest conversationalist I know. I could happily chatter (and bicker) with him for hours - about magic, about politics, about art and food and music. I'm always interested in his opinion on things. Even when it's Tory trash, no one articulates it better than he does. “I'm sure you can find something,” I reassure Simon. “Why don't you focus on the future, instead of the past? Ask him about his plans? And for Nicks’ sake, take that ridiculous cross off.”

“Yeah,” Simon agrees. “Yeah, I guess so.” He finally sits up straight and sighs, pulling the wooden crucifix up and over his head. “I still wish it could have just been the three of us though.”

“I know.” I reach out and pat him on the hand. “But think of the sick wheels we got out of it!”

**BAZ**

Snow is gone when I wake up, which is a relief. He kept the cross on all night, like he thought I was going to bite him or jump him in his sleep. I'm not sure which is more insulting. (That's not true. I absolutely know which is more insulting, because I spent half the night thinking about it.) (How could he think I would bite him? Or anyone?)

I take a lengthy shower, even though I’m starving. But I can't quite face going downstairs and meeting the others for breakfast yet. I’m not used to being on the defensive; I lived my whole un-life that way once, but now I’m out of practice. 

Not that I'm complaining, exactly. I just need a moment to compose myself first.

I'm also trying to work out where I can get blood. At home I have a regular order delivered to the flat every week. But I was so busy worrying about seeing Snow that I didn't make a plan for how I would eat in America. I suppose I assumed I would take up hunting again. Only now that I'm faced with the prospect, it's making my stomach twist unpleasantly. Draining rats is another thing I thought I'd left behind in Watford.

Naturally when I finally sit down with the Magelings 2.0 at breakfast, Bunce already has a plan.

“Obviously it's been at least 36 hours since you've had blood,” she says matter of factly. (It's more like 48.) “So that's our first priority. I looked up butchers in the area to find out whether any of them sell pigs blood, and we're in luck; there's a place a few blocks away. We should get you some now, and then bulk buy a load more to take with us later. We can keep it fresh in the car boot with a cooling spell.”

“Bunce,” I say, and my voice cracks a little. I clear my throat and compose my face. “Thank you. You're a marvel.”

“I've always thought so.”

“What did you tell them when they asked why you wanted to buy a car boot full of blood?” asks Micah.

Bunce shrugs. “They didn't ask. As long as you sound confident enough, people generally just assume you know what you're doing.”

“That's true,” I say. “Most people are either too stupid or too obsessed with their own lives to really notice you doing anything untoward. It's how I get away with all my nefarious misdeeds.”

“ _I_ always notice when you're being nefarious,” Snow says defensively, like I just called _him_ stupid and self-obsessed, rather than the world at large.

I raise an eyebrow, just to fuck with him. He flushes pink. (An irritated pink, not an embarrassed pink.) (I'm 90% sure.)

“Anyway,” Bunce says, giving Snow a significant glance. “If they ask more when we get there, I'll tell them I'm making black pudding from scratch. They'll probably just assume that's normal for English people.”

“I wish they served black pudding here,” Snow says sadly. “This bacon is terrible.”

“Awful,” Bunce agrees. “All right, Baz, I assume you don't want any dry toast or burnt bacon?”

I shake my head. I'm better at eating in front of people these days, especially my friends, but nothing here looks appetising. It's blood I need right now, not breakfast. 

So that's what we get. When we arrive, Bunce's theory is confirmed - the butcher doesn't blink an eye, just hands over the cup in a brown bag. I could probably chug it down right there in front of him, no trouble. (I don't. I do it in a nearby alleyway, like any other respectable creature of the night.)

When I’m done, Bunce and the American bounce off towards the Metro holding hands, while Snow and I follow behind.

Snow is acting very oddly, now that I think about it. He’s walking with his hands buried deep in his pockets, refusing to look at me, but he’s matching my pace exactly. And I don’t think he’s wearing his cross. The idiot probably lost it already. I experiment by quickening my pace slightly, and Snow keeps up. I slow down. So does he, still staring at his shoes, although now he’s blushing a little.

I stop. He growls, and whips around to face me. “What are you doing?” he demands.

I cross my arms and cock my head to one side. “What are _you_ doing? Afraid you’ll get lost?”

 _“No.”_ His face is all red now. He takes a deep breath and exhales, closing his eyes for a moment like he’s picturing himself elsewhere. Probably on a remote island with no vampires and his boring girlfriend being nice to him. “I’m keeping you company,” he says.

“Touching. Why?”

“I don’t know. Why do you have to make things so difficult?”

I take pity on him and start walking again. He’s always better in motion; it clears his head. He also seems grateful not to have to look at me while we talk. (I can’t say the same; I always want to look at him.)

“Well?” I ask, after another few moments of silence. “How does your keeping me company work? Are we going to chat now?”

He huffs. Sometimes I think he’s trying to expel enough air for the both of us. “How’s Mordelia?” he asks.

“She’s fine. Top of her magic words class. Unfortunately she’s also an Ariana Grande fan now, so I’ll have to kill her.”

(She wants to make a spell for _thank you, next_. She thinks it will ease heartbreak.) (She asked if she could use me as a guinea pig this summer and I threatened to throw her in a lake.) 

Snow nods, but I’m not sure he’s even listening. “The twins?”

“Still terrors.”

“The baby?”

“Not really a baby any more. What’s with all the Grimm family questions? You’re not going to try to burn our house down again, are you?”

This time, he’s the one who stops still. I turn to look at him, and his mouth is hanging open. “Why would you say that?” he asks. “You - you _know -”_  

It’s true. I do know. He hated himself for bringing the Humdrum to Pitch Manor, and he spent years desperately trying to make it up to my father and Daphne while we were dating. The guilt ate away at him, no matter how many times I told him he’d been forgiven. (It’s not like we only had _one_ country manor. We’re not peasants.) But he never forgave himself for taking away the magic from my mother’s home.

I should apologise and tell him it finally came back last Christmas. I should stop attacking him using his deepest insecurities. I should try to be a normal person.

Only - I’m not a normal person, am I? We’re not normal people to each other. Some days I’m not sure I count as a person at all.

So I just keep looking at him, my face impassive, waiting for him to stop spluttering.

“Oh, just, _fuck you,”_ he spits out eventually, and he stalks off to join the others. They are waiting for us outside the Metro station.

“Simon,” Bunce admonishes him when he reaches them. “What did you do?”

I laugh, and Snow glowers at me. “Let’s go,” he mutters. Bunce looks at me, and I shrug at her. She narrows her eyes, correctly suspicious of any situation in which I appear innocent. But she doesn’t say anything in front of him. We just go inside and buy our tickets, letting Micah fill the silence by talking about which of the museums at the National Mall are his favourite. (He eventually settles on Air and Space, I think.) (Nerd.)

“What happened with Simon?” Bunce mutters, when he and Micah get distracted by a busker on the platform.

“Nothing. He’s got a lot of pent up anger these days. Have you been taking him for enough walks?” 

“Oh, stop it. Were you winding him up again?”

“He winds himself up. I just have to stand there.”

“Well ease off, will you? I convinced him to be nice to you this morning. The least you could do is let him try.”

“Is _that_ what that was? An olive branch? I thought he was having some kind of seizure.”

She rolls her eyes. “Do you ever think it would be easier if you just stopped being _you_ for a bit, Baz?”

“Well that’s just offensive.”

The train arrives, and I stomp on. I push through some people to try to put some distance between me and the others, just for a moment. I close my eyes.

She’s right, of course. Everything _would_ be easier if I stopped being myself; I’ve known that since I was five years old. If I could stop caring so much about the people who hurt me; if I could stop wanting everything I’ll never have; if I could stop pushing them away to make sure I finish the job. 

But it’s like asking the sun not to shine. It’s impossible. And I wouldn’t really want it to anyway. I can no more stop being myself than Simon can stop being a mouth-breathing, beautiful disaster zone.

But I do miss the days when being ourselves seemed to hurt us less. When my insults wouldn’t cut him too deep, because they were always punctuated by a kiss. When I could put my arms around him and patiently ride out his moods, because they were never, ever punctuated by him _actually dumping me._

If we’re going to survive the next two weeks, we have to find a way to be around each other that doesn’t rely on the physical stuff to paper over our cracks.

Stake me in the heart and set me on fire, I think we have to find a way to be _friends._

I should have let the Numpties kill me when I had the chance.

**SIMON**

I don’t know why I’m still letting Baz get to me. I know it’s just the way he is. It’s not like he’s _trying_ to be an arsehole. He just _is_ an arsehole, and that used to be one of the things I liked most about him. (Because I’m an idiot. Ask anyone.) 

I don't really like being on the Metro. It’s a bit like being on a plane - squashed in a tiny metal tube, speeding too fast with no escape. So I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, just like my therapist taught me. In, out, _one, two._ In, out, _three, four._

I can do this. I can be calm. We’re almost there anyway, and when we arrive we can have a nice day looking at monuments or going to that space museum Micah likes so much. Most of all, I can let Baz say mean things without taking it personally and getting angry and ruining it for everyone else.

I keep counting my breaths, and before I know it Penny is tapping me gently on the shoulder and it’s time to get off. When we emerge above ground again, the sun is shining and Micah says we’re only a block or two away from the White House. We start to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Baz, still not looking him in the eye. “I didn’t mean to get so mad.”

I wait for him to say something shitty, already steeling myself to feel the anger and then let it go. But for some reason, he doesn’t. “Me too,” he says, and when I look up he’s watching me and his face is actually open for a moment. No hard lines. “I don’t mean to keep being cruel. Shall we call a truce?”

I smile. _Yes._ A truce. That’s exactly what we need - the truce in final year was the only time our relationship was even _close_ to being normal. (And doesn’t it say a lot that we were also investigating a murder at the time?)

“Deal,” I say. “Don’t get suicidal in the woods, and we might actually stick to it.”

He lets out a bark of laughter, and then covers his mouth like he’s embarrassed. I grin. I’d forgotten how much I love making him laugh. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting a control freak to lose control.

“I can’t believe you’d joke about that,” he says, shaking his head. “When half an hour ago you were about to stake me for joking about those _same woods.”_

I laugh, because suddenly it _does_ seem ridiculous. “I would never stake you,” I say. He smiles down at me, until I add, “You know I prefer swords,” and then he shoves me, and I shove him back, and suddenly we’re laughing so hard that we have to stop walking.

Penny and Micah come to join us.

“What’s so funny?” Penny asks, hands on her hips. She hates being left out of things.

“Snow’s going to kill me,” Baz says, and we both crack up again.

Penny smiles. “Oh, good. It’ll save me doing it later.” Baz puts his arm around her, still laughing, and I feel a funny kind of ache, even as I’m grinning stupidly at them. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed the three of us.

“You guys have a weird friendship,” Micah says, watching us, and I catch Baz’s eye for a moment. He winks.

I shiver.

“Hey, what’s with all the police?” Penny asks, stepping out from Baz’s embrace as several motorbikes ride past, sirens blaring.

“It’s probably the motorcade,” Micah shrugs. Two more police cars zoom past.

“For the _president?”_ asks Penny.

He nods. “Yeah - see this one coming up with flags? That’s him.”

Penny looks at me, and then at Baz.

“Quick,” whispers Baz. “We don’t have much time.”

I nod, and turn towards the road. The big, hulking black car is about to pass us. I take a deep breath, and flip it off with both hands. _“SCREW YOU, MAN,”_ I shout at the top of my voice, so loudly that several pedestrians turn to stare.

“Women’s rights are human rights!” Penny screams, giving it the finger.

Baz, dignified as ever, says nothing - he just spits on the ground, twisting his face in disgust as The Beast drives by us. Then it’s gone, followed by more sleek black cars and police vehicles.

“Well, you all just committed treason,” Micah says happily. “And it’s only your second day in America!” 

Penny shudders. “You know, I’m not sure I want to see the White House after all. I feel a bit dirty.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go to that museum instead. Or that pointy statue in the park, where Martin Luther King gave that speech.”

“The Washington Monument,” Baz supplies. “It’s an obelisk.” 

“It’s a cartoon character?”

“No, it’s -” He stops himself. “Are you being obtuse on purpose?”

I try to smirk at him, and even though I never quite mastered it, he laughs anyway.

“All right, Einstein, let’s go and see your pointy statue.” 

Micah takes us left, into the park away from the White House, and I’m pleasantly surprised by how green everything is, and how easily Baz falls into step beside me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Me @ my two silly boys.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9_tjEVvyjw)


	6. Cherokee National Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg guys, I cannot believe that Wayward Son is ACTUALLY an American road trip story about Simon's mental health? To be clear: I wrote this whole fic before I started posting it, and while I was jokingly trying to guess what might happen in the sequel, I really didn't mean to get close. (I feel slightly embarrassed about it now!) Having said that: damnnnnn guys, Wayward Son sounds incredible, is it October yet??

_Everybody's out on the run tonight_   
_But there's no place left to hide_ _  
\- Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run_

 

**SIMON**

Penny made us a ten-hour long road trip playlist (mostly classic rock and Britney Spears) and we’ve now been driving for about half of it. 

Micah took the first shift, which meant Penny and I could sit on the backseat together and irritate Baz by singing Toxic at the top of our voices. (“Although Baz,” Penny said, “The front seat _is_ reserved for people who haven’t been-” “Finish that sentence, Bunce, and I’ll end you.”) But then we stopped for food somewhere in Virginia, and Penny pulled Micah in the back with her and promptly fell asleep, so I was forced up front with Baz.

I think he's forgiven me for the singing, but it's hard to tell because we haven't actually spoken for about two hours - just watched rolling green trees speed by either side of this very long, straight road. Sometimes there were mountains. I think we're driving through some kind of national park.

Only now the sun has set (it was pretty) and it's getting harder to see anything at all.

I think Micah is asleep now too, and it feels oddly intimate with the roof of the car pulled down over our heads. Not claustrophobic, because the sky still feels close. More like… cosy. Somewhere in between the safety of being inside and the freedom of the outdoors.

I look over at Baz, who is staring resolutely ahead. His skin is so pale it's almost blue in the twilight and he's pulled his hair into a bun, which always makes his face look extra sharp. His hands are at ten to two on the steering wheel, and his back perfectly straight.

Of course Baz is as good at driving as he is everything else, but I'd forgotten that he's also the most _careful_ driver I've ever met. Never nervous or anxious; his shoulders are relaxed and he still oozes confidence. It's just that he's also swallowed the highway code. I don't think I've ever seen him break a rule from behind the wheel - except for that disastrous journey back from Soho in our final year. I didn't realise then how unusual that was.

Right now he's a million miles away from that desperate boy who spelled cars out of his own path just so he could get home faster.

Obviously I'm different too; I couldn't change a traffic light now if my life depended on it. Not even Penny's life.

Everything is just less now. Not so chaotic, not so intense. We're both quieter than we used to be.

“Snow. Why are you staring at me?”

I jump. Was I? I guess I was. Shit. 

“I'm bored,” I lie. “I can't see out of the window any more.” 

“Well stop being creepy and read your YA novel or something.”

Yesterday this comment would have pissed me off, but I'm already getting used to being around him again. And his voice has lost some of its ice. And even though he's not looking at me, I sort of think maybe he is. Just a little. Just out of the corner of his eye.

“I'll get car sick,” I say. “And we can't do a road trip in total silence. If we're going to have a truce, I think we should talk to each other. Without insults.”

“Well what else am I supposed to say to you?” he asks, but his mouth is twitching like he's holding back a smile. I don't think he means it.

“Tell me about your fancy pants new job,” I say, slumping in my seat and twisting to face him. “It must be good if you're willing to move to America for it. You once told me you think the Queen should still be in charge here.”

“Well it's not like they're doing a good job of ruling _themselves_ ,” he argues, and he lifts his hand from the wheel and gestures outside at the trees, like they have any say in the matter. I snicker.

“Right,” I say. “And California? You? It must be a really good job.” 

“It's a research job,” he says, and he's still staring straight ahead but now his shoulders have tensed and he's gripping the steering wheel too hard.

“What kind of research?”

“Magical research.”

“What _kind_ of-”

“I can't tell you.”

I sit up straight again. Is something wrong? Is he in trouble? “Why not?”

“Because it's a secret. I signed a contract.”

“A secret contract?”

“A non-disclosure agreement. The research is sensitive, especially in Britain. There are a lot of people there who wouldn't be very happy about it.”

“Baz…” I try to think of the best way to put this. “It's not evil, is it? You're not building, like, a secret magickal bomb or something?”

That wasn't the best way to put it. He finally takes his eyes off the road to look at me, and he looks hurt. “What? No. For fuck's sake, Simon, you don't _still_ think I'm the bad guy?”

“No!” I throw my hands in the air. “It just sounds really sinister!”

“Well, it's not.” He looks back at the road, scowling. I shift in my seat. I wish we still had the car roof down, but we put it up when we stopped for dinner because Baz said it would get too cold at night. I feel suddenly trapped. I hadn't thought about it before - I trust his driving - but now I'm thinking about all of the ways I'm not in control of this situation, how I've put my life in his hands, and if another car was in our path there would be nothing I could do to stop us crashing into it. Shit. Maybe I need to get out. Maybe we need to stop. Maybe -

“It’s about me.”

“What?”

“The research.” He lowers his voice. “It's about what I am.”

Vampires? He's got a job researching vampires? “Oh,” I say. Then I think about what it's like back home these days - how mages talk about magickal creatures like they are something to be feared and hated. Even Philippa's family do it, just casually mention that they should be “rounded up” or “dealt with”. There are rumblings that the Coven are too soft, that Penny's mum should throw the creatures out of Watford and go back to the old ways.

It makes me angry when I hear people talk like that, but it's not surprising really; dark creatures attacked us constantly during the Humdrum era; vampires killed a former Watford headmistress; the guy who introduced the reforms turned out to be… whatever the Mage was. It makes sense that people are scared.

Still. No one was attacked by more dark creatures than me, and it was Baz's actual mum who died, but _we're_ not trying to Make Mages Great Again or whatever it is they want.

I can see why he wouldn't want them to know, though.

 _“Oh,”_ I say again, just to make that clear.

“Mage laws are more liberal in California,” he explains. His shoulders have relaxed again now, and he risks another glance at me. This time I smile at him, and he gives a half-smile back. “People have more rights there. Including me.”

“What will you be trying to find out?” I ask.

“Answers,” he says, and although it's the most evasive response in the history of the world, I know exactly what he wants answers to: the same questions he asked when we were together, in the softest quietest moments, when he finally opened up some of the scariest things in his head.

Is he alive? Can he age? Will he die?

I used to tell him it didn't matter, that he should focus on right now because I loved him whatever happened in the future. When the moment was right I'd make a joke to lighten the mood: “I for one look forward to making out with my young hot vampire lover on my 100th birthday.”

Then he'd laugh, thank God, and say something like: “I've already told you I'm going to Turn you at your most handsome.”

And I'd say, “Like Bella Swan?”

And he'd roll his eyes and say, “Not like that at all, I thought you were studying literature, you're supposed to be over this.”

And I'd say, “Well even when I'm a hot vampire I'm still celebrating my 100th birthday by kissing you.”

And he'd say “Like this?” And things would be better.

I guess none of that matters anymore. He deserves answers to his questions.

“I won't tell anyone,” I say.

“Thank you.”

 **BAZ**  

I couldn't believe it when I was offered the job, after 17 years of not understanding how my own body works. Books on the subject are totally useless; they're all legend and baby-eating hysteria and “the execrable darkness of the vampyric soul”. There's never a chapter on “Vampire biology 101” or “Top 10 tips for dating mortals”. Everything I know is from experience: a lifetime of pushing my own limits to see how far I can go, or when my body will start to break. But soon I'll finally be able to analyse it properly, with real data.

Vampirism is magic, of course, which means it's all tied up in spirits and intention and other unknowable forces. But magic is a little bit science, too: it has causes and effects. It has rules. It has behaviour. And that means it can be measured, and things that can be measured can be tested, and then they can be predicted. 

The Americans have known this for years; that's why they use their magic differently. While we were all fighting about tradition and plotting to kill each other, they were learning more about where their power comes from and how it works. They were treating it like a science, while we worshipped and argued about it like a religion.

I think it's both. But I didn't realise any of that until I started talking to Penny, who had been talking to Micah. She was the one who suggested I switch to a biosciences masters after LSE, and it was her contacts that led to this job at the end. (Crowley knows none of _my_ contacts care about the experimental magickal biology of dark creatures.)

Anyway. It felt good to finally tell Simon about it, even if I couldn't go into the details. He was the one who planted the seed all those years ago when he kept blindly, stupidly insisting I wasn't really dead. Soon I'll be able to prove him wrong once and for all.

Or prove him right.

Either way, I win.

It's pitch black by the time I pull the car over. We're in the middle of Cherokee National Forest and the humans in the car need some proper sleep. So I get Snow to wake up Bunce and the American while I look for a clearing, light a fire, and start setting up the tents.

There are only two, of course. Bloody Bunce.

“Where are we?” asks Snow when they join me with the luggage.

“The nearest town is called Shady Valley,” I say. Bunce bursts out laughing. “Something funny?”

“Only you would bring us to a place called Shady Valley,” she says, shaking her head. “You're such a goth.”

I glare at her. (Admittedly, seeing the sign did seem like the perfect opportunity to stop.) (I am nothing if not shady, after all.) (But I'm not a _goth_.)

“Can we eat?” asks Snow. I gesture towards the fire that's already roaring in the middle of the clearing.

“I brought marshmallows,” says Micah, and he reaches down to pick up some sticks. “Ever made a s'more, Simon?”

Bunce claps her hands together. “Is it spooky story time? Come on, Baz, your whole life is a spooky story. You're in, right?”

I sneer at her and turn my back on the lot them, flourishing my wand to finish pegging the tents. Maybe I should just claim one straight away and leave them to work out where Snow spends the night. It would serve Bunce right if he slept between her and the American all night because he was too stubborn to come near me.

“I can tell a scary story,” Snow says, shrugging. He flops down next to Micah and starts eating marshmallows straight out of the bag, without even waiting to cook them. “Boys used to tell them all the time in the homes.”

I decide I'm not really tired yet and silently sit in front of the fire. But I sit several feet away from them and pull out my phone, opening and closing random apps to make it clear that I don't care about story time. (Because I'm not a child.) (There's no signal here though, so I'm not really doing anything but wasting battery.) (They don’t know that though.) 

“You always said you didn't have friends when you were in care,” Bunce says to Snow, which seems mean even to me.

He just shrugs. “They weren't telling them for _fun._ When I was little the older boys would tell them to make us wet our beds. But, you know, then I went to Watford and shit got _really_ scary so it stopped working.”

Oh, Simon.

“That's rough, man,” says Micah. “Another marshmallow?”

“Sure.”

“Want one, Baz?”

“No, thank you.”

“Baz thinks he's too cool for marshmallows,” Bunce teases as she sits in Micah's lap and eats one herself. Like Snow, she doesn't bother to cook it first. I ignore her. Disdainfully.

“All right. Enough dilly dallying then,” says Micah. “I want to be scared, Simon. _Terrified._ Extra points if I wet my bed tonight.”

“Er, no,” Bunce protests. “I share that bed.”

“Okay.” Snow stuffs a final four marshmallows in his mouth. No matter how hard I tried, I never did manage to teach him to eat with his mouth closed. “Did you ever hear the one about the two roommates?”

“Roommates! Whatever made you think of that?” Bunce pulls a hip flask out of her coat pocket and takes a swig before passing it to Micah. I glare at her. Snow blushes. Micah hands him the flask.

“It's the best story I know,” Snow says.

“Me too,” Bunce replies solemnly. I will end her. “Want a drink, Baz?”

“No, thank you.”

“He's too cool for drinking now too,” she stage whispers to Micah.

“Put a sock in it, Bunce,” I say. “Let Snow tell his story so we can all get some sleep.”

She throws her hands in the air. “Fine! Fine. No one ever lets me have any fun.”

“So there were two roommates at a boarding school,” Snow begins. “One was named Susan, and she was very popular.” 

“That's you,” says Bunce.

“The other was called… er… Beth. She was very clever. She spent a lot of time studying.”

“Classic Baz.”

“No more interruptions,” Micah tells her, and she pouts at him, but then mimes zipping up her mouth. She gives Snow a thumbs up.

“Er. Thanks.” He leans forwards so his face is illuminated by the orange glow of the fire, and I can see the moles on his neck. I want to bite them. Instead I put my phone back into my pocket and indulge this opportunity to watch him closely without being accused of being creepy. Snow glances up at me as if he can feel my gaze intensifying, and looks away.

He clears his throat and lowers his voice. This time he begins properly. “Susan and Beth get along pretty well. They tell each other everything. But they're very different people. One day their politics teacher says they will have a test tomorrow, and they'd better study hard. But after class, a popular boy named Peter asks Susan out to a party. He's captain of the football team, and ridiculously handsome. She's fancied him for ages, so she decides to go.”

Peter sounds like a dick.

“Back in their room, Susan tries to convince Beth to come to the party with her. She says it will be fun. But Beth is worried about the politics test, so she says she'll stay in and revise.”

Beth sounds like a dick too.

“Susan spends ages getting ready while Beth works. She tries on different outfits and puts her make up on really well and does nice stuff to her hair. She wants to look her best - and she does. All the while, Beth is reading her politics textbook and making notes. Susan asks her one last time if she's changed her mind, but she says no.”

Why is Susan trying so hard to bring this girl on her date? Susan sounds gay as fuck. (I relate.)

“Eventually she leaves. She's sort of worried about the test but she reckons she can borrow Beth's notes the next day. And anyway she really likes Paul.” 

“I thought his name was Peter?” asks Bunce, miming unzipping her mouth.

“Oh yeah. She really likes Peter. That's what I meant.”

Bunce zips her mouth back up.

“So she goes on the date and has a great time. There's dancing, and smuggled boarding school booze, and at the end of the night she kisses Peter. It's probably the best party of her life, she thinks, even without her best friend there. Eventually she goes back to her room, but it's 2am, so she doesn't turn on the light because she doesn't want to wake up Beth. She hears a creak, but it's an old building and that happens a lot, so she's not scared. At first. She gets undressed in the dark and goes to bed. She hears another creak, this time a little louder. She's a bit freaked out now, and she's starting to worry about the test too, but she tells herself she's being silly. She just needs to go to sleep so she can wake up early and study. Eventually she calms down. As she drifts off to sleep she thinks she hears footsteps... but it's probably just her imagination.”

Snow pauses. Bunce and Micah are watching him closely now, all silliness abandoned. For a moment the forest is eerily silent, but for the sound of the fire crackling between us.

“Susan wakes up the next morning and looks at her phone. It's 11am. She's already missed her politics class. She's annoyed that Beth didn't wake her, but when she looks over at her bed, Beth is still asleep too, flat on her stomach. Panicked, Susan jumps out of bed and shakes her shoulder, trying to wake her up, but she doesn't move. Susan rolls her over - but Beth's been gagged and her eyes are open with terror. Susan looks around. There is blood everywhere. Beth has been murdered. Susan falls down and screams. She feels something drip onto her face. She looks up at the ceiling and there, written in Beth's blood, it says… _Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?”_

 _“Fuck,”_ says Micah.

I shudder. Snow is weirdly good at telling that story. And I don't think I've _ever_ heard him speak for so long without interrupting himself or getting flustered.

“Susan is an idiot,” Bunce declares, folding her arms crossly. “Why didn't she turn on the light and save her friend?”

I roll my eyes. “It's a miracle you've survived as long as you have. The self-preservation on you.”

“ _Sick_ story, Simon,” Micah says appreciatively. He holds out his arm. “I've got goosebumps, look!”

“Yeah, when did you get so good at storytelling?” Bunce asks, barely keeping the surprise out of her voice.

Snow shrugs and colours. “Who’s next?”  
  
“Ever hear the one about the vampire with a soul?” asks Bunce, looking over at me and winking.

“Isn’t that the plot of _Buffy?”_ asks Micah, sticking another marshmallow onto a stick. “I think we’ve heard it, Penelope.”

I stand up, suddenly exhausted by the effort of staying awake. “I’m going to bed.”

“Wait,” Snow says. He’s still blushing. “Er… there are only two tents.” 

“I’m delighted you can still count,” I tell him.

We look at each other for a long time. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Bunce staring at us, opening her mouth and then closing it again. (For once.)

“I’ll sleep outside,” Snow says eventually.

I frown. “What? Don’t be stupid. They’re bigger on the inside, it’s like the Tardis in there.”

Snow shakes his head. “I want to. I like being outside. I’ve never slept under the stars before.”

“There are bears in this forest,” I tell him without thinking. I should just leave him to be mauled in his sleep. It would serve him right. “And banshees. And rattlesnakes. You can’t fight them off without your magic. _You_ sleep in the tent, if it’s such a big deal.” (If you can’t bear to lie a few feet away from me.)

“Well _you_ can’t sleep outside,” he protests. “You get cold.”

This is true. Now that I’ve stepped away from the fire I’m already chilly. But I’ll be damned if I let Snow win this one and get seduced by a banshee in the middle of the night. “I’ll sleep by the fire,” I say.

Snow frowns. “You’re flammable.”

_“So are you.”_

“Morgana, kill me,” Bunce groans. “Go to bed, Baz. I’ll cast a protection spell on the campsite to keep the danger away. Simon will be fine. All right?” She gets up and starts walking around the clearing in a circle, pointing her ring at the ground and muttering to herself. “Bloody pissing contest. They should make a bloody banshee spray, it would sell like bloody hotcakes.”

Snow is still staring at me. He juts his chin forwards.

“Fine,” I say. “I hope you freeze to death.” But I throw another ball of fire into the pit, just to make sure it’s still burning come morning.

**SIMON**

I wake up in a sweat. _Shit._ Maybe this was a bad idea. Sleeping outdoors sounds good in theory, being all one with nature and that, but it's less good when you start having nightmares and suddenly nothing can protect you from monsters except a thin sleeping bag. And your wits.

And Penny's protection spell, I guess. _She did a protection spell, Simon._ Begrudgingly and sarcastically, but still competently. I think.

Although... she _had_ been drinking.

But that doesn't matter. Spells still work when you're drunk. Penny's do at least. And anyway, it's not really the banshees I'm afraid of. The dream is already slipping away, but I remember flashes of it. I remember coming back to our old room in Watford to find Baz slaughtered in his bed. I remember bloody words on a wall. _Stop hurting me._ And the Mage, always the Mage, back from the dead and smiling and telling me it wasn't my fault. None of it was my fault. But then he dies again and I still can't save him, even though I'm screaming and pressing at his wounds, trying to stop the blood, and he looks so betrayed. How could I let this happen again? Just when I got him back?

Not that I want him back really. My therapist says I want the idealised version of him that I had as a child. The father figure I was promised but never given.

She's probably right.

Still. That feeling in the dream, when he's there and he's forgiving me, always makes me so peaceful. Sometimes that's all the dream is, and things don't go wrong after, and for a moment I wake up feeling calm and happy. That's so much worse than any nightmare. 

I shake my head and roll over in the sleeping bag. I try to get my body to relax, closing my eyes and counting to ten, but it only makes my heart beat faster. So then I stand and pace around the edge of the clearing, seeing if I can sense the protection spell, but of course I can't feel anything. I can never feel anything magickal any more.

Except Baz. Baz's magic is so warm and strong, sometimes I can feel it from across a room. His body may be cold, but his magic is a solar flare. Sometimes it used to hurt to be around it. Other times I would ask him to do spell after spell for me, conjuring fire in his hands or making all of our possessions do the conga around the living room, just so I could feel him burn. He might not be sure yet, but it was never a question for me - Baz is alive. He's so alive it kills me.

I sit down next to the fire, which is still roaring, and put my head in my hands. I miss magic so much. I try not to think about it most of the time. I put all of my energy and focus on the good things I still have left. But I feel empty. I've felt empty for four years now.

I don't regret what happened that Christmas. It's not like I want the Humdrum back. But on nights like this, when the night is so dark, I wish I still had a little light.

I look at Baz's tent and make my decision.

I crawl inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to pour one out for The Shoebox Project, whose spooky story chapter fucked me up when I read it as a tiny teen.


	7. Nashville

_And if you don't love me now_  
_You will never love me again_ _  
\- Fleetwood Mac, The Chain_  

**BAZ**

I wake up to the smell of smoke and cinnamon, which can only mean one, impossible thing.

But it's impossible. I must be dreaming. So I pull the sleeping bag over my head and try to sink back into sleep.

Only... I'm _not_ dreaming. Because I can hear Penny loudly singing Carly Rae Jepsen outside as she makes breakfast. She's got the kind of piercing, off-key singing voice that even my nightmares couldn't conjure up. Plus, I can feel a rock digging into my thigh; the **softly, softly** that I cast last night must have worn off.

And it's hot. I feel like I've woken up in a sauna. Or a supernova.

That hasn't happened for a long time.

I open my eyes. And it's true, I'm not dreaming: Snow's bronze curls and golden skin are lying opposite me, so close that I can feel his breath on my face. He hasn't even brought his sleeping bag with him, he's just passed out next to me on the ground like an animal. A very careful animal: his wings are spread to one side to stop them touching me. He’s wrapped his tail around his own leg to keep it still in the night. (I used to do that. That used to be my leg.)

He must be so uncomfortable.

But he's sleeping so deeply, I wouldn't be surprised if it was his loud breathing that woke me up in the first place.

What is he doing here?

What does he want from me?

What do I do now?

I close my eyes again and take it in for a moment. It's been so long since I had this. (So long.) For a second I let myself remember what it was like to be able to reach out and brush the curls from his face. To feel no barrier between us. No invisible force stopping me from being allowed to touch him whenever I felt like it. Not even sex touching - just casual, everyday contact. I let myself remember it all.

Then I get up and fuck off. Waking up next to Simon Snow is far better and far more agonising than I remember. I'm out.

I pull on trousers and a shirt and storm outside, taking gulps of fresh air as I go.

“Morning Baz!” chirps Bunce. “Want some sausages?”

I ignore her, breaking through her protection spell like I'm pushing through a haze of thick, airborne treacle. It smells like sage. I keep walking, crashing through the undergrowth, but when I glance at the clearing behind me it's like no one was ever there at all. Our camp is totally invisible. (Crowley, Bunce is good.)

I keep walking anyway. I have nothing to lose now I suppose. If I'm lucky she'll have made the spell so strong that I can't find my way back, and they'll have to go on to Nashville without me. I could easily survive by myself; that's the benefit of vampirism. If I can live for six weeks in a fucking coffin, I can manage a few days in a forest stuffed with game.

I don't relish the idea of living in _this_ particular forest though. It's obnoxiously American: the trees are unnecessarily taller and thinner than the sturdy oaks at home in Oxfordshire. I bet if I look hard enough I'll find a waterfall just begging to appear in someone's Instagram feed. Even the nature in this godforsaken country is self-absorbed.

Although maybe I just don't like forests in general. They remind me of that Christmas when everything was in flames: my home, my school, my heart. Simon always to blame, of course. When a whole relationship is baptised in forest fires, is it any wonder it burns itself out in the end?

I light a flame in my hand and throw it at the ground, where it fizzles out rather pathetically. I don't try again. Not because I've matured; mostly because I don't think Snow would come and save me this time.

I am hungry though. That's the other thing I remember from that Christmas: his magic, and how I could use it to lure a deer right into my path. How he gave it to me without question. How I was able to glimpse what he really was: a deep well that went straight down into the Earth's core, connected to everything, waiting to be found. How I was so hungry, and he filled me up.

I pull out my wand and whisper, “ **Run, rabbit, run.** ” And then I crouch down and wait, and wait, until - yes, there. A flash of brown steaks past me, but my reflexes are fast, and soon I'm drinking the thing's blood as it goes limp in my hands.

“That was pretty disturbing.”

I whirl around. Bunce. Of course.

“What do you want?”

“You know I've never seen you hunt before? I guess I'm so used to the blood bags, I forget where it really comes from. Typical squeamish millennial.”

I just look at her. I'm still holding the rabbit, but I'm done with it now, so I let it drop to the ground with a thud. For all her talk of squeamishness, Bunce doesn't even flinch.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Fine.”

“Only you stormed off pretty quickly.”

“Can't I get some peace without one of you do gooders following me? I'm fine. I just needed a minute.”

“Is it Simon?”

I groan, and cover my face with my hands. “No, Bunce. I love waking up to my ex-boyfriend mouth-breathing an inch away from my face. It's hilarious when his sidekick keeps nudging and winking at me every time we so much as make eye contact. I _adore_ listening to his inane phone calls with the girl I almost killed.”

She nods wisely. “I think it's Simon. That's what's bothering you. I see it now.” Then she frowns. “Anyway you didn't nearly _kill_ Philippa.”

I sigh and lean back against a tree, suddenly unable to give a fuck about any of this. She takes a few steps forwards and pats my shoulder. “I don't know what I'm doing here,” I tell her. “I don't know why we're lying to him. I don't know why I agreed to it.”

“You're going to get him back,” Bunce insists. “He's remembering why he's obsessed with you and he's wishing he could undo what happened - I can see it, plain as day. You're both so bloody predictable.”

“He won't change his mind now. He's too stubborn.”

“That’s you; Simon just takes time to adjust to new ideas. Or in this case, old ideas.”

I frown. “Maybe I should go home. You can tell him I got eaten by a bear.”

She rolls her eyes. “You're just being dramatic. We're making progress, aren't we?”

“It doesn't feel like progress.” It feels like torture. He came in to sleep next to me in my tent but he didn't let a single inch of us touch. Who the fuck does that?

“We just need to loosen him up a little. And I've got the perfect thing.”

I cross my arms. “We're not drugging him.”

“Well don't say it like that; I mean _booze,_ Baz, good honest booze. Drunk Simon is my favourite Simon, he's got zero filter. If he's drunk and he wants to kiss you, he will. I should know. I've seen it happen.”

“And if he doesn't?” I hate myself for being desperate enough to ask.

She throws her hands up. “Then you can leave, if you want to leave so much! I'll tell him you were eaten by a bear. He'll probably try to off himself with grief but we'll bring you back before he gets the chance. Happy?”

I smirk. “Your plan is… the plan from Romeo and Juliet.”

“It's a classic.”

“You’re going to accidentally murder us both.”

“And they'll tell your story for generations, written in the stars, blah blah. Come _on,_ Baz. Stop sulking and eat some sausages with us. Let Simon sleep in. Talk to Micah about how much you hate America. The rest will work out in its own time. I _promise.”_

I nod, and begin to follow her back to the tents. “Fine. But I give it to the end of this week.”

“Perfect.”

“If he doesn't kiss me or dump the mute by then, I'm out. You're driving yourself the rest of the way.”

“That’s okay. I'll make Micah do it.”

“I can't stand this fucking country.”

“I know, babe. I know.”

**SIMON**

“Oh look, it's sleeping beauty!” greets Penny.

She, Baz and Micah are all laughing and cooking sausages when I emerge from the tent. I flip her off and settle down beside them. Micah wordlessly passes me a hot dog before I can ask for one, and immediately starts cooking another.

“Thanks,” I say, smiling at him and avoiding eye contact with Baz. I still feel sheepish about last night. Now that it's morning I can't remember what was so scary, or why sleeping next to him seemed like it might help.

Although it _did_ help. I guess. I mean, I haven't slept so well in weeks. Maybe months. Until I woke up when I heard him leave, and then lay there thinking about what a prize moron I am.

“What's on the agenda?” I ask Penny.

“We can go for a hike this morning if you like. Apparently there's a beautiful waterfall near here. We'll drive to Nashville later. We've booked an AirBnB there tonight in the city centre, so we can hit some bars this evening. Hear some country music. Discover the next Taylor Swift.”

“Sounds great.” I look at Baz and wait for him to make a snarky comment about our music taste. But he doesn't. He just carries on making himself coffee, pouring a pan of freshly boiled water into a tin mug and adding two packets of sugar.

He glances up at me, like he can feel me staring. “Want one?” he asks.

“Please,” I say, and he starts rummaging in Penny’s box of camping supplies for another mug. “I’m sorry about last night,” I blurt. Shit. Why did I say that? Now everyone's looking at me. It sounds like I did something really weird, like tried to kiss him or something. I plow on: “It was… colder than I expected. Outside. So I thought. The tent. Warmer, maybe. Anyway, I hope - I hope I didn't - you know, wake you.”

Shit shit shit shit shit.

“It's fine,” Baz says, eyebrow raised bemusedly (but not cruelly). He passes me a mug of coffee.

“Okay. Thanks. Sorry.”

“Are you all right, Simon?” asks Penny.

My heart is racing. I close my eyes and start to count.

“Yeah. I might, er, call Philippa. If I can. Before the hike.”

“Okay,” she says. “We've got time.”

I nod, open my eyes, take a sip of scalding hot coffee, and burn my tongue. It's probably for the best.

**PHILIPPA**

Simon calls me halfway through my lunch break at work. I'm lying outside in Bunhill Fields, but I roll over and prop up my phone on the grass so my hands are free to sign. Simon is walking through the woods. He looks stressed.

I give him a wave.

“Hi,” he says, raking his hand through his curls. “It's good to see you.”

_You too. Is everything okay?_

“Yeah. Yeah, I just -” He looks over his shoulder like he's afraid someone's listening or following him. “I woke up this morning and I wanted to see you.”

I smile. _Me too. Where are you?_

“Some forest. Tennessee, I think. It's really nice here actually. We camped last night, told spooky stories, ate marshmallows. The whole scene.”

_Your whole life is a spooky story._

“Ha. That's what Penny said. Although she was talking about…” He trails off, looks away and swallows, then looks back at me guiltily. Oh.

_Baz._

“Yeah. You know, because he's… spooky.”

I raise my eyebrows. _How are things with you?_

He looks startled. “What do you mean?”

_Are you still fighting?_

He shrugs and looks over his shoulder again. Like anyone can overhear me.

“Not really. But we're not, you know… friends.”

Flirting. He means they're not flirting. I can believe that, on Simon's part. He looks like he wants to pull his curls right out of his head. If he was cheating he would be much better at hiding it. But he's guilty about _something_ , and that means Baz is surely flirting with him.

 _I trust you,_ I sign, truthfully. I want to say “I love you,” only we haven't said that before, and if I do it now maybe it will seem like I'm desperate, or like I'm trying to get him to stay with me out of pity. That's not how it's going to go. When I say it, it will be because I can't say anything else.

He sits down in front of a tree and stares off at something in the distance, his face shutting down while he thinks. I wait for him to come back to me, happy just to watch him. He does this sometimes. We can spend hours sitting in silence together. Me, because I have to and I'm used to it. But I think Simon finds it soothing. Penny is loud and she talks at 100 miles per hour and always expects him to keep up. But I think he likes being able to slow down. I think he likes not having to talk.

“You're happy, right?” he asks after a few minutes.

I blink in surprise, and nod. _Yes. Are you?_

“I think so,” he says. “Yes. No… I don't know.” He picks at the grass next to him, frowning. And then he bursts out: “What does that _mean?_ Even when I think I'm happy, I'm always something else. I was happy at Watford, but I thought I was going to die in a fiery showdown before I hit 20. I was happy after Watford, but also I'd just lost my magic and I was angry all of the time.”

_Are you angry now?_

“I don't know. I wasn't when I was in London, with you. But it feels like it's coming back now. How does anyone know what being happy is, anyway?”

_I don't know. You're scaring me a bit._

He shakes his head. “Sorry. Ignore me. I got anxious and I just… I wanted to talk to someone.”

_You can talk to me. Don't say sorry._

“Sorry.”

I roll my eyes, and he laughs a little. “I love you, Philippa.”

I blink once, twice, three times. I open my mouth. I close it again. He's watching me and blushing, and the sun is turning his hair gold and I'm going to remember this moment for the rest of my life.

_I love you too._

**BAZ**

Snow is quiet on the way to Nashville. It's the American’s turn to drive, so the two of us are in the back seat of the car while Bunce and Micah play an idiotic game called “Guess The Fruit”.

Snow hasn't looked at me once.

“Is it bigger than my fist?” asks Micah, making a fist.

Simon is resting an arm on the side of the car, tapping out an anxious rhythm. Tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap. I want to lean over and grab his hand in mine. I want to ask him what's wrong. I want to kiss him and headbutt him and scrape my fangs down his neck. Probably not in that order. I just want.

“Hmm… about the same,” says Bunce.

“Intriguing. Is it often mistaken for a vegetable?”

I wish we had put the car roof up. I'm wearing dark sunglasses and a violet jacket to cover up my arms, but the sun is still making the skin on my face sting. I wonder how much exposure it would take for me to spontaneously combust right here on the highway? (It would be my own fault for showing off. This would never have happened in the Prius.) (Actually, it probably would. But if we were in the Prius I would have set myself aflame on purpose.)

“It is not,” says Bunce primly.

“The plot thickens!” says Micah, like he's in a bad Sherlock Holmes remake. “Tell me: does this fruit have any religious or mythological significance in European traditions?”

“Ooh, good question! It does.”

Snow is still staring out at the scenery. It’s green - there are endless trees on either side the road, which feels like it will stretch on forever. This patch of Tennessee doesn’t look all too different from home, except that everything feels ten times bigger. At home, if we'd driven this far from London we would have reached Edinburgh by now; here, we haven't even left the state. It makes it all feel a bit pointless.

“I've got it. You thought I would assume you chose something difficult, so you double-bluffed and tricked me by choosing…” Micah beats out a drumroll for himself on the steering wheel. “...The humble apple!”

“Wrong.”

“Shit.”

“Want a guess, Si?” asks Bunce, turning around in her seat. He ignores her, or more accurately he isn't listening to begin with. He looks like he's 1,000 miles away. (If only we were all so lucky.) “Baz?”

“I'd rather stake myself.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Micah snaps his fingers. “A peach!”

Bunce looks at him with affectionate disdain. “Is your fist the size of a peach?”

“Fuck.”

“For fuck's sake,” Snow says. “It's a fucking pomegranate.”

Bunce and the American go quiet. “...Right,” she says. For once in her life, she sounds small.

“Sorry,” Simon says, leaning forwards and putting his head in his hands.

I want to pull him into my arms until his shoulders finally relax. Instead, I jab my wand at the car radio and cast, “ **sing your heart out** ” just to fill the silence. The speakers jump into life and start blasting The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.

It's a bit on the nose. But I swear, as it gets to the chorus, Simon finally looks at me.

No one says a word for the rest of the drive.

By the time we’re all parked outside the AirBnB in Nashville, dusk has fallen and everyone is starving. I catch Penny’s elbow and keep her behind while Simon and Micah go inside to check in.

“He doesn’t mean it,” I say. “You know what he’s like when he’s stressed. Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m fine,” Penny insists, although I can see right through her. “It’s just tiring, that’s all. I want him to be okay. I don’t want him to keep lashing out at me when I’m the one…” She trails off.

 _...Who stayed._ She doesn’t have to finish the sentence for me to understand. We used to share this burden. _Not_ that Simon is a burden - that’s not what I mean. Just that it was easier to respond to his outbursts with a roll of the eyes when there was someone else there to roll them at. I realise, for the first time, that without me Bunce has been shouldering it all for a year. All of that anger, no longer divided by two. No wonder she’s exhausted.

Before I even realise I’m doing it, I pull her into a hug. “Let me take him out tonight,” I say. “You have a night off. Spend some time with Micah.”

“No, we should stick together,” she says, but she hugs me back tightly. “Anyway, I’m not sure he’s ready, it might freak him out more.”

“We’ll be fine,” I say. “It might be good for us.”

She pulls away and looks at me suspiciously. “I’m not sure he’s in the mood to be hit on.”

I smirk at her. “Not by _you._ But we’ve always had different ways of handling him.” _(Handling_ being the operative word.)

She snorts. “Yes, but that was when you were already together. This time angry sex might be a bit harder to initiate.”

“I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.”

She shakes her head and laughs.

But half an hour later, Snow and I find ourselves alone at a steakhouse on Broadway, surrounded by tourists who think they are cowboys, eating meat so bloody that Snow looks like he’s finally been Turned.

I’m not really trying to get him to have angry sex with me. I just want him to talk. He’s still anxious, drinking his beer too quickly, looking at his phone every two seconds and tapping his fingers incessantly. We eat the whole meal in silence. I don’t know why I’m waiting for him to speak first (he never does) but I suppose I’m still working out the right thing to say to him.

As they clear the plates away, I finally give up on that and get straight to the point. “For Crowley’s sake, Snow, what exactly is wrong with you?”

**SIMON**

What _is_ wrong with me? Why am I acting like this? Why can't I let my friends be happy without spoiling things? Why can’t I just enjoy a holiday?

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say.

“Bollocks. Why are you ignoring me and snapping at Bunce?”

“I'm not.”

Baz raises one of his perfect bloody eyebrows. And _this_ is what is wrong with me, exactly this. The way the sight of his face mocking me makes me want jump him right in the middle of this weird cowboy bar. The way his hair is falling over one eye. The way he's wearing that dark purple velvet jacket like he's the prince bloody regent. (And somehow he doesn't look like a twat.)

He doesn't say anything. Not to me anyway. He just turns in his seat, flags a waiter, and orders four double whiskeys, neat.

“Bottom's up,” he says when they arrive (thankfully without any magic). He drinks the first shot in one, so I do too, burning the back of my throat. He sips the second more slowly.

“Getting me drunk won't make me talk to you,” I tell him.

He raises an eyebrow again.

Fuck.

Ten minutes later, I've slumped forwards and buried my head in my arms so I don't have to look at him when I say it. “I told Philippa I love her.” My voice is strained. “I think it was a mistake.”

“Crowley,” he says. “You really are a terrible boyfriend.” He calls the waiter back and orders two more drinks.

“Not to you,” I mumble. “At least, not until the end.”

He clinks his glass against mine. “Not to me.”

An hour later we’re stumbling down Broadway and we find a pale lilac bar called Tootsie’s. There’s music pouring out of it (there’s music pouring out of everywhere) and Baz stops. “Here,” he says. “This is the place.”

“How do you always know the right place?” I ask. Talking to him was a good idea. It was awkward as fuck, but at least he didn’t try to give me love advice, just listened and ordered more drinks. It felt good to get out all of the anxiety that’s been gnawing at me since last night. (Well, most of it.) Eventually he paid for the whole bill himself and told me we were going dancing. “You can’t know the perfect place in every single city in the world,” I continue, poking him in the chest. “You’re a vampire, not a… not a… _travel_ -pire.”

He looks at me like I’m a first year who still thinks Father Christmas might be real. “TripAdvisor,” he says, and then stalks inside. I follow him. (Of course I follow him.) It’s packed. There are people spilling out of the door and into the street, but Baz can cut through any crowd. Normals part for him like he’s Moses. (Or a dark creature, I suppose.) I just have to stay close. When we get to the bar he orders more whiskey.

“I don’t want more whiskey,” I shout. (I have to shout to be heard over the music.)

“What do you want?” he shouts back, and I shrug, so he orders me a cocktail. I don’t hear what it’s called, but it’s bright yellow and it tastes like summer. I’m feeling increasingly hazy around the edges. Alcohol does that. It dulls all of the sharpness until I’m just swimming, my mind blissfully blank again. I never used to think at all; it’s so much easier to _do_ things that way. Sometimes it’s nice to find that feeling again.

We move away from the bar, closer to the band. They are playing something fast, and old, that sounds like it was written for a barn dance during the American Civil War or something. There is a woman playing violin so fast that her hand is a blur, and the men in the band are stomping their feet while they crank out the guitar. Everyone around us is dancing, jumping up and down or spinning in circles, so I nod my head and move my shoulders along with them. Baz doesn’t, even though coming here was his idea. He just watches the woman with the violin, slowly sipping his drink, like he’s deciding whether to be impressed or not.

He must decide that he is, because when the song finishes he claps enthusiastically and smiles at me. She hops off the stage; she must have only been playing the one song. The next few are more rock 'n’ roll and I jump around until Baz is laughing and swaying from side to side. Then I finish my drink and wander back to the bar.

“Another one of these please,” I ask the woman behind the counter.

“What was it, doll?” she asks.

“Er. I dunno. Yellow.”

She smiles at me. “Yellow, huh? Did it taste kind of like pineapple?”

I nod.

“I got it.”

“Where are you from, darlin’?” asks a woman next to me, nudging me with her shoulder. It's the violin player from before. She’s got long dark hair and wide red lips.

“London,” I say.

I’ve never known how to answer that question. For a while I said _Lancashire,_ because that’s the care home where I stayed the longest and where I picked up my accent, but it’s not where I was born. I don’t actually know where I was born. These days I tell people _London_ , because that’s where I live now, but that answer doesn’t feel right either. If you moved somewhere as an adult, it’s not where you’re _from,_ is it? Where you’re from is where you were made, where you spread your roots, somewhere you can always go back to.

The truth is, I’m not _from_ anywhere.

That’s not what this woman wants to hear though. And it makes me sad to think about it. And I don’t want to be sad right now.

“London!” she repeats, thrilled. “I’ve always wanted to go to London. Everyone I meet from London is handsome as the devil.” She winks at me. Little does she know that I actually _do_ look like the devil. I feel my tail start to swish, out of sight, so I catch it in my hand and grip tight.

“Even the girls?” I ask, and she laughs.

“Yup! Even the girls. You think I’d fit in?”

She gives me one of those broad American smiles, all teeth. I nod. But then I wonder if that was wrong. Are girls meant to be handsome? Maybe I just insulted her.

But she just laughs again, and leans closer to look me in the eye. “Maybe you could show me sometime,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say. The barmaid pushes my drink towards me. “How much do I owe you?” I ask, turning to her and fumbling in my pockets for money.

“I'll get it,” says the violinist. “Tell me, handsome -”

But before I know what she wants me to tell her, I feel a cool hand on my back, right between my wings, and Baz’s lips at my ear. “Watch it, Snow, she’ll eat you alive.”

I jump away from him. The woman looks at us both, and her eyes go a little wide. I can see her thinking, _boyfriends,_ or possibly, _Europeans,_ and then she just laughs, tips her drink at us like a salute, and turns away.

I whirl around to glare at Baz. “What was that for?”

“What?”

“The possessive boyfriend act.” I shove at him a little with one hand. Not enough to hurt him. Just enough to make him rock back a little on his heels. “I didn’t like it even when you _were_ my boyfriend.”

He sighs. “I’m doing you a favour. What would your loving girlfriend think if she saw you flirting with a violinist?”

This time when I shove him, I really am trying to hurt him. “Piss off.”

“Not that easily.”

I don’t want to fight him and cause a scene. So I just leave, pushing my way through the crowds and out of the door into the street. It’s dark now, and the air feels cooler, but the city is livelier now than it was before. There are people everywhere, and cars whizzing past, and I can hear about ten different songs playing at once, so it all just sounds like noise. I can still feel Baz’s breath at my ear. I can still feel his hand at my back.

Sometimes things are so cold, they feel hot. Sometimes ice can burn you. Baz’s cold hands are always setting me alight.

I stumble down a different road, and then down an alley that takes me to the back of the bar. There are people out here too, but less of them. It’s a little quieter. The song playing now is soft, and slow, something about a keeper of stars. I lean against a wall and close my eyes and count.

When I open them, Baz is standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets, waiting for me to calm myself down. Of course I didn’t expect to lose him. I never lose him, even when I try. He once said he could smell me walking down the street a block away. (I don’t think that was true, though.) (He can't turn into a bat, either.)

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean to keep pissing you off. Believe it or not, I’m actually trying to be nice to you.”

“You’re doing a piss poor job of it,” I say.

“I’m a little out of practice.”

He leans against the wall next to me, pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and lights it with a click of his fingers. I don’t bother telling him he’s flammable.

“Me too,” I say. “I didn’t mean to snap at Penny today.”

“Bunce is made of strong stuff, Snow. If she was going to get fed up of you, she’d have done it by now.”

“I don’t know why she stays. I don’t know why she hasn’t left already.” I think of the way that she ran at Micah in the airport in New York. The way he swung her around like a moviestar.

“She cares about you,” Baz says.

“She can’t look after me forever. She’s got a life. Here. Well, not here - but in New York, maybe. Or Chicago. With Micah.”

“Is that why you told Philippa you love her? So you won’t be alone?” Baz looks at me, his hair falling across his forehead, smoke framing his face.

 _Yes,_ I want to say. _I don’t want to be alone._ But then… _No. I want to be alone with you._

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I just panicked.”

He snorts. “Yeah, that checks out. What panicked you?”

 _You. Always you._ “I don’t know. Everything just feels too much sometimes. And Philippa feels… safe.”

He looks at me for a long time, thinking, and then draws another chest full of smoke and blows it back into the air above our heads. “Now, I know I have a vested interest here,” he begins, and I swallow. His eyes flick to my throat, and back up. “But _safe_ isn’t exactly _love_ , is it?”

“No,” I say. “It was a mistake.”

“Do I make you feel safe?” he asks softly, turning to face me and leaning his shoulder against the wall.

“No,” I whisper.

He looks sad. “I wanted to. I _tried_ to. Every day.”

I close my eyes. “I know. I mean, it’s not your fault. I mean… it’s not how it sounds. I didn’t feel safe because you were _too much,_ Baz. Too good. For me. Too much to lose.”

“You weren’t going to lose me,” he murmurs. His forehead is almost touching mine. “Simon.”

“I _could.”_ I push away from the wall and spin around to look at him. “All it would take is… is one rogue vampire hunter, or another crazy mage with a vendetta against creatures, or - or one wrong spark from your fucking cigarette.”

He drops the fag immediately and crushes it beneath his shoe. He steps towards me. “Simon,” he says. “That won’t happen.”

“It _might._ Christ, Baz, you attract trouble like… like me.”

“I know,” he says. “We match. But we survive trouble too, Simon. Nothing’s beaten us yet.”

I wish he’d stop saying my name. It sounds too soft. It sounds like the past coming to life. It sounds like danger.

“Simon,” he says again. He takes another step towards me and draws his fingers along the edge of my shirt collar. “Why did you break up with me?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I panicked.”

He laughs.

And then he kisses me.

And it feels just the same as it always did.

**BAZ**

Kissing Simon now, in this dirty back alley, feels different. Better, and sadder, and softer. Like I’m trying to make up for lost time but I never will. It feels temporary. It feels like one-night-only, like a last chance, like a final gasp of air before you sink to the bottom of the ocean.

He saw it coming. He gripped my shoulders before our lips even met. And now he’s kissing me back desperately, wrapping his arms around my neck and pushing me back into the wall again. I let him. I let him do whatever he wants. (I always have.)

“Simon,” I say, breaking away to kiss across his jaw and pull my fingers through his curls. “Simon.” I want to say something, to tell him to stay with me, to pour out a year’s worth of _I love you_ s that have been building in my chest. But I can’t get it out. I can only repeat his name like a crazy person. “Simon. _Simon.”_

“Baz,” he says, hands on my chest. “Shut up.”

 _“Simon,”_ I say and I kiss him again and then pull away from him, even though it will probably kill me. “You don’t want this.”

“I do,” he says. “It was a mistake, Baz. It was all a mistake.”

And I want to cry, because that’s all I’ve wanted to hear for so long, but now he’s saying it and it’s wrong. “I agree. Fuck, Simon, do you think I don’t know that? But you’re not a cheater.”

He lets go of me. I try not to whimper. “What?”

“You told Philippa you love her. And now you’re drunk. And you won’t forgive yourself if you take this any further. You won’t forgive _me.”_

He shakes his head. “I… I can’t break up with her now. It’s the middle of the night in London.”

I pull him towards me, and he falls against my chest and puts his head on my shoulder. I wrap both arms around him and exhale. “Do it tomorrow,” I whisper. “And it can all go back to normal. I’m not going anywhere, Simon. I would never leave you.”

“But you did,” he says. His voice is so small that only I could hear it.

I pull my arms tighter. “Only because you told me to.”

“You didn’t come back,” he argues.

“You didn’t ask me to,” I point out.

“I didn’t think I had to.”

I start to laugh. I can’t help it. Crowley, was that really it? This whole time? Bunce is right, we’re too stubborn for our own good. He laughs too, softly, and buries his head further into my neck. I put a hand on the back of his head, brushing his curls with my thumb.

“But you _are_ leaving,” he sniffs. “You’re moving to California.”

I shake my head. “I’m not. The job’s in London.”

I know I’ve made a mistake as soon as the words are out of my mouth. His whole body stiffens. “What?”

There’s nothing for it; I’ve made my bed now. I can't start something new with him if it's based on lies. “It’s the same job I told you about, the creature research. But it’s in London. I’m not moving here.”

He pushes against me. I open my arms to let him go. “Then why are you here?”

“For you,” I say. “Simon…”

“Don’t call me that. You _lied_ to me?”

“Only so that I could see you. Would you have let me come if there wasn’t some other reason for me to be here? I just needed a chance to talk to you. Penny thought -”

“ _Penny?_ Penny knew about this?”

Fuck. “She… Yes. She did.” I don’t tell him that it was all her idea. He’s angry enough as it is.

“I can’t believe this.” He crouches down, pulling his curls so hard I’m scared he might actually tear them out. “What else?”

I kneel down in front of him and take hold of his wrists, trying to stop him from hurting himself. “Nothing,” I say. “That’s it, I swear. Simon, please.”

“Stop it,” he shouts, and he wrenches away from me and stands up. I crane my neck up to look at him. There are tears on his face. There are tears on mine. “Stop calling me Simon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny+Baz=Besties4lyf


	8. The interstate

_And I see losing love_   
_Is like a window in your heart_   
_Well, everybody sees you're blown apart_ _  
\- Paul Simon, Graceland_

**PHILIPPA**

I smile when Simon’s name flashes up on my phone, requesting FaceTime. It must be first thing for him - I’m not even on my lunch break yet. I’m not really supposed to answer my phone at work, but… he loves me. He loves me, and the knowledge has been singing through me all morning.

I thought no one would ever love me again. But Simon Snow, saviour of the World of Mages, does.

When I answer he’s sitting in a white bathroom, his back against a tub, and he looks like hell. His hair is sticking up in all directions, and not in the charming way that it usually does. His eyes are red.

_Are you okay?_ I sign.

He bursts into tears. “I’m sorry,” he says.

_What's wrong?_

He can't see me. I get up out of my seat, waving at my manager to tell her I'm taking a short break, and go outside. I wait for Simon to get himself together. I want to tell him to stop crying. I want to reach through the phone and hold him and tell him it will all be all right. I want to _speak._

_What's wrong?_ I ask again when he finally looks back into the camera.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I know what's coming before he says it. I _feel_ it, creeping up my veins towards my heart like ice. But I wait for him to say it. (How much of my life have I spent waiting for Simon Snow? Hours? Years?)

“We have to break up.”

I want to scream.

**PENNY**

I love waking up with Micah. It might even be better than going to sleep with him. We spend so few nights together that we never waste them; I always wake up tangled in him, one arm dead from the weight of holding him tight. He says my hair tickles him and makes him sneeze. I say his rumbling snores keep me awake. It’s perfect.

This morning I bite his shoulder to let him know I’m up, and he must already be awake because he flips me over and pretends to fall asleep on top of me. I bite him again, harder this time.

“Ow!”

“Get off me, you big lump.”

“But you’re so comfy.”

“Don’t make me take out a chunk next time.”

“You’ve been besties with a vampire for too long. It’s doing strange things to your head.”

I push him off me, flipping him over so that I’m straddling his chest. He grins up at me.

“Good morning, darling,” I say.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Sleep well?”

“Like a rock. Want some tea?”

“Yes please.”

I find my plastic bag of Yorkshire tea (I smuggled it with me; I’m not drinking the American stuff) and pull on one of Micah’s old t-shirts. It says I ♥ corn.

When I walk into the living room of our Airbnb, Simon is waiting for me on the sofa. There's a pillow and bedsheets next to him; Baz’s plan must have failed.

“You’re up early!” I say, smiling at him. I’ve forgiven him for his outburst, of course. We’ve been best friends too long for a little snappiness to come between us. Our fights are always forgotten by the next morning.

“You lied to me,” he says. His voice sounds far away, like an echo.

I stop in my tracks. “You what?”

“You,” he says. “You lied. You knew Baz didn’t have a job in California. He convinced you to let him on this trip, and you didn’t tell me the real reason he was here.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. _Shit._ And then I open them, searching Simon for any signs that he’s tried to hurt himself. I’m encouraged by the fact that he’s talking to me, he hasn’t shut down like he did after he broke up with Baz. He’s still with us. And he looks okay.

Furious with me. But okay.

I cross the room and sit next to him, putting my arm around his shoulders and taking his hand in mine. Filling up his space. Reminding him that I’m _here,_ and whatever I’ve done, I love him, and I’m not afraid. Then I do the only thing I can do in this situation, and tell him the truth.

“I did lie,” I say. “But Baz didn’t convince me; I convinced him. It was my idea. Baz only went along with it because he’s desperate.”

Simon doesn’t pull away from me, but his head slumps forwards like he’s just been shot. I feel him begin to shake. “Why?” he asks. He sounds heartbroken. Betrayed. I think about saying, _Because he loves you,_ but I know that’s not what he means. He means me.

“Because I love you,” I say. “And you’re my best friend and I want you to be happy.”

“I was happy,” he says, and a tear falls from eyes and splashes onto my hand. I rest my head on his shoulder.

“You _weren’t._ You were… coasting. You were playing it safe.”

He shakes me off him suddenly and stands up, so quickly that I fall back against the cushions. I lean forwards and reach out to take his hand again. He pulls it away.

“How did you find out?” I ask. I’m trying to keep my voice calm, like this is a normal conversation, like I haven’t potentially just fucked up our friendship for good.

“Baz told me.”

I sigh. And to think we used to suspect him of being a supervillain.

“I’m sorry for lying,” I say. “But I’m not sorry he’s here. It’s time you two sorted this out.”

“That’s not your call,” he growls, balling up his fists.

“I don’t care,” I say, and I feel myself beginning to lose my cool. “You were happy together. You’re miserable apart. Blimey, Simon, you almost boiled yourself alive when you first broke up. You scared the living shit out of me.”

“That was a long time ago. I’ve been getting better. I was perfectly happy with Philippa until -”

“Until what?”

He glares down at his feet.

I soften my voice. “Until what, Si? You saw Baz again?”

“Yes.”

“Well don’t you think that _means_ something?”

“It means that I thought I could trust you,” he says, looking up and into my eyes. “And I was wrong.”

“Simon,” I say. “You can trust me. _Simon.”_

“I’m going for a walk,” he says. “ _Don’t_ follow me.”

I start to feel desperate. I mean, what if he gets lost, or attacked by goblins or something? What if he doesn’t come back? What if this is actually it? “Simon, stay and talk to me. I know you’re hurt. But I did it for you; because I know you, and I care about you.”

He shakes his head at me. “Someone else made big plans for my life once,” he says sadly. “And it killed him. I thought you, of all people, would let me choose my own path.”

He slams the door behind him.

Micah finds me there 20 minutes later, still with my head in my hands. “Penelope?” he asks. “What's wrong?”

“Simon's gone,” I weep. “I've fucked it, Micah. I'm worse than the Mage.”

Then Baz emerges from his bedroom, slamming the door open like fury itself. He looks like he’s just woken up. He’s wearing silk pyjama bottoms and an old LSE t-shirt. He hasn’t done his hair.

“Simon's gone?” he asks. When I don’t respond immediately he crosses the room in two strides and grabs hold of my shoulder. “Bunce. Simon's gone _where?”_

“I don't know,” I say, as Micah silently taps Baz on the shoulder and shakes his head. Baz lets go of me. “For a walk, he said. He told me not to follow him. Why did you have to tell him the truth?”

“We can't lie to him forever. What did you think would happen when I came back to London on the plane with you?”

“I thought we'd have more time to explain,” I say. “I thought he'd understand. What happened with you two last night?”

Baz is already pulling on his coat. “I kissed him,” he says.

“What? Did he kiss you back?”

“Yes.”

I blink in surprise. “Well… it's okay, then, isn't it? He's angry, but only because we were right. He’ll get over that in no time.” I jump up and grab my own coat, even though I'm still only wearing Micah's t-shirt and a pair of knickers. “I'll come with you.”

“Not if he asked you not to,” says Baz, crossing his arms and blocking the doorway. Oh, Merlin, I haven’t missed his possessive boyfriend act one bit. “The last thing you need is to betray his trust. Again.”

That shuts me up. For a moment. “You did this too, Baz. We both did it.”

“I'll text you when I find him,” Baz says, and he leaves.

I slump back down on the sofa. Micah sits down with me and pulls me to him. The reality of all the ways I've royally screwed up starts to sink in.

“Do you think I'm a horrible friend?” I ask.

He starts stroking my hair. “Penelope. No one in the world has been a better friend than you have to Simon. Not ever. It almost broke us up, how loyal you are to him. He'll get over this.”

“I tried to control him. I'm worse than the Mage.”

“Bullshit,” says Micah. “The Mage controlled Simon for power. You did it for love. The only thing you both shared was believing it would actually work. The guy doesn’t like being told how to feel about people. Can you blame him?”

I can’t, obviously. The Mage told Simon to trust him, and then murdered Ebb. He told Simon that Baz was evil, and Baz turned out to be the love of his life. (I still stand by that opinion.)

Why does everything always have to come back to the Mage? His fingerprints can still be found all over Simon’s psyche, in all the darkest places. He moulded and twisted him for so long that sometimes I think we’ll never be able to untangle it all. I try to picture how it might feel to find out that, after you thought you’d broken free, your closest friend was trying to shape you too. I feel a bit sick.

“What if he never forgives me?” I whisper.

Micah gives me a comforting squeeze. “He forgave the Mage, didn't he? A real-life murderer?”

“That was different; he couldn’t help it. He loved the Mage. He got under his skin.”

“He loves you too. Trust me, Penelope Bunce. Once someone starts loving you, it's impossible to stop.”

**BAZ**

I find him in a park, in front of a replica of the Parthenon. (Like this country couldn’t get any tackier.) He's sitting on a bench, watching people walk past and admire the building. I sneer at them.

“How did you know I was here?” he asks when I sit down.

I tap my nose. “I've told you. I can smell you.” This isn't entirely true. I can smell him a few feet away, but I'm not a bloodhound. I can't track his scent. I just _know_ him; I know he always wants to be amongst trees when he's upset. So I walked until I saw trees, and then I saw a kitsch tourist attraction, and lo and behold.

“I'm still angry with you,” he tells me. “And Penny.”

I cross my legs and lean back, laying one arm on the back of the bench. Not around Simon. Just Simon-adjacent. “All right.”

“And I don't like being lied to.”

“Noted.”

“And I'm not going to kiss you again just because you found me with your vampire nose.”

“What makes you think I want to kiss you again, anyway? You’ve got terrible taste in architecture.” He looks at me, mouth hanging slightly open. I want to kiss it shut. “Fine. You don't find my heightened senses attractive any more. I'm sure I'll find some other way to be irresistible.”

He laughs a little, despite himself. “I just need time to _think._ I need to know what I want. Without you or Penny telling me. I can make up my own mind.”

“All right,” I say, even though I’ve seen no evidence of that. “What about the mute?”

“Don't call her that.”

“What about Stainton then?” I resist the temptation to do air quotes, because it’s probably not the time.

“I told you. I need time to think.”

“All right,” I say again, more softly. “You can have all the time you need.”

We sit in silence for a while. I wonder whether it would be rude to get out my phone. I wonder whether I should be filling this time with a speech about my undying (undead) love for him. I wonder how much time he needs exactly: a week? A month? Five minutes? Then I stop wondering things and just try to breathe his smell: Smoke. Vanilla. Bacon rolls.

Crowley, I’m hungry. Snow must be starved.

“Are we still on a truce?” he asks eventually.

I stare at him. Does he think I would go back to being his enemy just because he asked for some time to think? One kiss and I'm back to pushing him down the stairs? Does he think I was ever his enemy to begin with?

That I won't spend my whole lifetime waiting for him if that's what he wants?

“Yes,” I say. “We're… friends. If you want to be.” I try not to sound like the word doesn't make me want to vomit, or break something.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Okay, friends.”

**SIMON**

I don't really know how to be friends with Baz. The word doesn't seem big enough. It's like claiming you're friends with the moon.

But I can't go straight from being with Philippa to being with Baz again. We can't start another relationship in flames; not if we want it to last this time. I need to get everything straight. I need to let things settle. I feel like my head is still spinning from the last few days. (Or _years.)_

“Do you want to head back?” Baz asks. He's still sitting next to me on the bench. For the first time, I notice how tired he looks, and that he’s still wearing his fancy pyjama bottoms. “Penny is worried about you,” he says.

_Penny._ I don't know if I can forgive her so easily. _I trusted her._ She was the only person I really, genuinely trusted. I mean, I expect Baz to plot against me. He's always been a manipulative arse. But I didn't think Penny would be plotting _with_ him. And not just plotting; _leading_ the plot.

I know she's Team Baz. She's never hidden that. But I thought she was on Team Simon first. Isn't _anyone_ on Team Simon first?

I can hear my therapist’s voice in my head: “ _You_ need to be on Team Simon first.”

Christ, it’s a bit embarrassing how quickly I’ve imploded without her. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we spoke last, and I’ve already cheated on my girlfriend, dumped her, accused my best friend of acting like a murderer, and had about five separate anxiety attacks.

“Let's get food first,” I say. “I'm starved.”

I don't talk to Penny when we get back to the flat. I let her hug me, and then I start packing up my things into my bag.

“You’re not leaving?” she asks, hovering by my side like she’s afraid I might fly straight out of the window.

“Why would I leave?” I grunt. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

And so we hit the road. It’s Baz’s turn to drive, so I sit up front with him and refuse to turn around to talk to Penny. We have a long way to go today - through basically an entire state, and another national forest. Baz says he’ll do most of it. (“Because I have more stamina than you mortals.”)

I’m glad. Baz doesn’t try to make us play I Spy or Twenty Questions when he’s driving. He just puts on his sunglasses, tunes the radio into a morose country station and drives. We pass through Jackson, like the Johnny Cash song. We stop for lunch and a walk in Memphis like Cher (although Baz insists on playing the original). Then it’s back in the car and over the Mississippi River, playing the blues.

I don’t talk. No one tries to force me. I just watch the scenery roll by and let the music fill my head.

And I think.

There’s only one way I know how to think without the thoughts getting muddled and sending me into a panic. So I make a list: of all the reasons I should be with Baz and all the reasons I shouldn’t.

  1. He's dead fit. I mean, obviously. We've been through this before. Hair. Forehead. Eyebrows. Long legs. Grey eyes. I've been making lists about his many perfections since I was twelve. That's a reason for.


  1. He's a complete arsehole. He can't get through the day without insulting me, Penny, his immediate family, and everyone who crosses his path at least once. Sometimes we would sit in the park and he would make a mean comment about every single person who walked past. That's a reason against.


  1. He didn't usually mean it though. That's how we flirt. And he only did the park thing because it made me laugh; the comments were usually ridiculous things like “he looks like he uses the word synergasm”. Or he would wait for a group of teenage boys to walk past and say, “look, it’s One Direction”. It was dumb. And funny. He could be properly funny when he wanted to. That's a reason for. Or maybe it's a reason against the against.


  1. He tries to control everything. He always has to decide where we go and what we're doing and what I wear. Against.


  1. He never actually tried to control _me._ Every important decision I made (moving to London, studying English, giving most of the Mage's inheritance to charity and working my way through uni instead) he accepted without question. Also, I'm terrible at dressing myself. For.


  1. He waited for a year without dating anyone else, even while I had a girlfriend. For.


  1. Does that make him a stalker? Against.


  1. He never technically stalked me. For.


  1. He never even sent me a text! If he was so in love with me, why didn't he fight harder? Against.


  1. Because I told him not to. Because I made an important decision and he accepted it. I don't know if that's for or against. I don't know if I wanted him to fight. I don't know I don't know I don't know.



We're two hours into Arkansas and I'm still running the list through my head when Baz announces that we're almost out of petrol. (He refuses to call it gas. “It's not gaseous, Snow.”) He pulls us carefully into a garage, and steps out of the car to fill up.

(11. He's an excellent driver and it’s weirdly hot. For.)

Penny, Micah and I get out to stretch our legs. The air is scorching hot once we stop moving, and dusty. There's something creepy about gas stations in America, even in the daytime. Probably because they always seem to attract crimes in movies.

(12. He's always attracting crimes. Actually, I wouldn't put it past him to _do_ crimes. Against.)

“Simon, can I talk to you?” asks Penny, nudging me with her shoulder.

“I'm thinking,” I say.

“Are you sure that's a good idea?”

I glare at her and walk inside the shop, hoping to find some good snacks. And hoping she won't follow me. I'm disappointed on both counts.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean it like that. I meant that I'm worried about you. I don't want you to get lost in your own head.”

“I'm right here,” I say, staring at the disappointing food selection. I was hoping for sandwiches. Instead there are just three types of crisps in giant sharing bags. Baz walks past us to the counter, raising an eyebrow at me and picking one of each flavour on his way.

(13. Always knows when I want snacks. Always knows when I can't make a decision. For.)

“You know what I mean,” Penny says. “Sometimes I worry you'll disappear completely.”

“I'm trying to work out a problem,” I say. “In peace.”

“You know, a problem shared…” It's a spell, for easing anxiety, but she doesn't lift her ring so I know she's not saying the words with magic. (Thankfully. She knows how much I hate mood spells.)

“I haven't forgiven you yet,” I say. “Can you just… leave me alone? Just for a bit?”

She looks hurt, and for a moment I feel bad. But then I remember that she just exploded my personal life because she was bored with it, and the feeling goes away.

Baz pays for the petrol and the crisps, and I follow him out of the garage and towards the car. Only when he gets into the driver's seat, Micah is already sitting shotgun.

“Sorry,” he tells me, shrugging. “Snooze you lose.”

I glare at him, because I know he's only doing it so I'm forced to talk to Penny. I wrench open the back door and slide along the backseat, until I'm pushed against the other side of the car. I turn my back to her.

“Well now that we're all settled,” Baz says, turning the key in the ignition. (14. Smug bastard. Against.) He opens the salt and vinegar crisps, eats one, and throws the rest of the bag into my lap before easing back onto the highway. (15. Always shares food. Actually, maybe I should limit food-related reasons to just one item on the list, or I'll never reach the end. Scratch number 15.)

“You can't ignore me forever,” Penny says. “Remember first year? The silent treatment has never worked on me before.”

_That wasn't the silent treatment,_ I want to argue. That was terror. That was eleven years of neglect and abandonment manifesting itself into an inability to speak aloud.

I don't say that though. Because this time it actually _is_ the silent treatment, and I feel like I'm closing in on an answer to my problem. If I could just focus...

Penny sighs, and points her ring at the two seats in front of us. “Sorry boys,” she says. “ **Hear no evil.”**

The sound of the radio disappears, like it's been sucked into a vacuum. I watch Baz glance over his shoulder at us and say something sarcastic, but no sound comes out of his mouth.

“I really am sorry,” Penny says. Her voice is serious now. “For lying. For trying to manipulate you. For… for not letting you make your own decision about this.”

I turn to look at her, if only because I know that she won't leave me alone until I hear her out. (And because she's right. I can't ignore her forever.)

“My only defence,” she says, putting a hand on her heart, “is that I was right. I'm sorry for my methods, but not my message. You _do_ love Baz more than Philippa. Seeing you around each other again is only making me more certain of that. I mean, look how many crisps he just bought you.”

“It's not your decision,” I say. Then I eat a handful of crisps, and sneak a look at Baz. I wonder if I should offer him one, but I know it’s best not to pressure him about food. He'll eat if he wants to.

“I didn't decide it,” Penny says. “I just _know_ it.”

I huff, and look back out of the window.

“I know you kissed last night.” (15. Can't keep a secret from Penny. Always telling her about my drunken mistakes.) I glance up to make sure he definitely can't hear us, but he seems to be chatting to Micah. “How was it?” she asks.

“It was… good,” I admit. Not that I want to talk to Penny about this, not after what she did. I don’t want her to think she can just start interfering all the time. But... I do want to talk to _someone_ about this. “I mean, in the moment. Before I realised what it meant.”

“What did it mean?” she asks, softly like she's worried she'll spook me.

I shrug. “That I’m, y'know. A cheat.”

I think about Philippa's face when I called her this morning. She looked so happy to see me - and then so angry when I ended it. Which she should be, considering what I told her yesterday.

The worst part was, I couldn't find the words to explain to her that I had actually meant it - that when I sat in that forest and I told her I loved her, I wasn't lying. She fell into my life at exactly the right moment, and getting to know her this year was probably the only thing that could have saved me.

I loved that she gave me space to think; she never minded if I wanted to sit in silence. I loved that she could communicate so much without speaking; everyone else I know can talk for England, but you don't see as much that way. Philippa saw things. She saw me.

Most of all, I loved that she understood how it felt to be on the outside of magic all the time. How you live your life with your nose pressed against the glass, and you know it would be better for you to walk away, but you can't. Because you were just inside. And you can't shake the feeling that you might be let in again soon, if only you wait for long enough. I don't know what I would have done if I'd had to go on living without anyone else ever understanding how painful that is.

I still love Philippa. I love her heart, and her smile, and her patience. I love her like I love Penny. Like I love Agatha. Like I once loved Ebb. (God, I miss Ebb.)

I just don't love her the way I was supposed to.

But I couldn't get any of those words out, because I felt so guilty about Baz that I could barely even speak. Eventually she just asked me: _is it him?_

I said no. Because it wasn't, not really. It was me; I'm the one that's broken. I'm the one that keeps hurting people. She hung up soon after that. I told her I was sorry, but I don't think it was enough.

I hope she's okay. I hope one day I can make it up to her.

“You're not a cheat,” says Penny firmly.

“I _am,”_ I say, and then I sigh. “But. It's over. I broke up with her this morning.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” When I look at Penny, I can see she's trying not to smile.

“Stop. It wasn't because of you. It wasn't even because of Baz. _Don't tell him,_ by the way.”

“I won't. But if it wasn't for Baz, then why?”

I shift uncomfortably in the seat. “Because... if I could do that to her… I can't be a good boyfriend, can I? She deserves better.”

“Or maybe,” Penny says, looking at me over the top her glasses. “It's not another reason to punish yourself. It's just that _you love Baz.”_

I don't say anything. She sighs.

“Simon… why did you break up with him? What happened that night? Before I got home?”

She's asked me this before. I've never known what to say. Eventually she stopped asking, but maybe it's time I figured out the answer too; maybe that's the key.

“I… we were fighting,” I say. (16. The fights.) “About… everything. Him. Me. The Mage. The past. The future. Plotting. Magic. _Everything._ You know how we get. We can never resist the lowest blow. And I looked at him and I thought… I'm going to fight with you for the rest of my life. And I couldn't do it anymore.”

“I hardly ever saw you fight,” says Penny.

“Come off it. It was all the time.”

“It wasn't, Simon. Bickering maybe. But I thought you liked bickering with him. I thought you were flirting. You hardly ever had a proper row.”

I shrug again. “But when we did… it was awful.”

“I know. But that's because you cared about each other. It's normal to argue with the people you care about sometimes. And you always made up, didn't you? Until the last time?”

I nod. (17. The making up.)

“And don't take this the wrong way, but…” She stops.

“What?” I demand.

“Well... you always started it.”

I look at her. She looks guilty, and sort of sad, and worried that I’m going to start yelling at her again. She ploughs on anyway.

“You picked the fights. It was like you were testing him. You were testing both of us. It wasn't your fault, you've been through so much, but… sometimes it was like you were _trying_ to get us to hate you.”

Her eyes are filled with tears.

“And we never will. Either of us. We couldn't. So maybe… maybe it's time you stopped trying so hard to make us.”

(18. It was all my fault.)

“I really am sorry,” Penny says. “All I want - in the whole world, Si, if I had one single wish - is for you to be happy. And I'm used to getting what I want.”

I laugh. I close my eyes for a moment. And I reach out my hand for her to take. “It's okay,” I say. “I know.”

“Am I forgiven?” She brightens up, sitting up straight and beaming at me, grabbing my fingers and squeezing them tight.

And I realise that she is. I’ve been a shitty friend to her so many times, and she’s never once held it over me. I owe her one. (I owe her a million.) “Yeah. You know you are.”

“Thrilled to hear it. I can't stand it when you're cross with me, especially when I deserve it.” She pauses, and looks at Baz. “I’m not going to tell you what to decide. But the way he loved you - the way he _still_ loves you - it’s out of this world. It's not normal. It’s…” She searches for the right word, and then shrugs. “Destiny.”

  1. He still loves me.


  1. I still love him. Exactly the way I'm supposed to.



**BAZ**

I drive until the sun starts to set. Micah offers to take over for a while, but I don't mind doing it. It's not a difficult journey; there are no stop lights on the interstate, no pedestrians, barely even any real corners. Just long, sweeping curves that the car seems to sail around almost of its own accord. After a while, I stop thinking about the road, and the route, and the boy in the backseat. I stop thinking about anything at all. The thoughts just melt away into nothingness.

A distant part of me wonders if this is what it's like to be Simon. Empty. Peaceful. Focused only on the task at hand, no worrying about what's around the bend.

Or, at least, what it used to be like to be Simon.

I wish he could be like that again. He thinks too much these days. Ever since Watford, really. It's like the only way he could survive being the Chosen One was to push all of his thoughts away, but now that there's nothing to survive (except life) (and knowing me apparently) they've all come back to haunt him at once.

Bunce removes her soundproofing spell after a while, and it looks like the two of them have made up. Eventually Simon removes his seat belt. I almost tell him off for being unsafe - but then he stretches out across the seat and nods off with his head in Bunce's lap, and I don't have the heart.

I just drive a little more carefully, and let him sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's [alternative song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH4Y1ZUUx2g)


	9. Texas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: one homophobic slur. (Sorry.)

_Breathing is the hardest thing to do_  
_With all I've said and all that's dead for you_ _  
\- Stone Temple Pilots, Interstate Love Song_

**BAZ**

My main impression of Texas is that it's very brown. The grass is dry. The roads are dusty. There are oil rigs, Dairy Queens, and rusty orange tractors on the outskirts of towns.

After spending all of yesterday driving through Arkansas, this morning Bunce staged a coup and demanded that I take us off the interstate.

“We're not seeing the real America! We're just seeing concrete and the backs of cars. I'm _bored,_ Baz. And Simon wants to see a buffalo.”

We were packing our things into the car outside the terrible motel we'd slept in. (TV has it wrong, there is nothing remotely sexy about motels.)

“Is this true, Snow?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sure. I like buffalo. I think we saw some yesterday though.”

“You can never have enough buffalo,” Bunce declared (incorrectly).

I looked at the American for support, but he seemed extremely interested in inspecting the tyres. So instead of pulling back onto the comforting, predictable main road, we turned right and began driving through dusty old towns and long stretches of brown fields.

Now Bunce is sat up front, acting like I’ve taken her on safari. She points out completely mediocre landmarks and talks incessantly about the history of Texas: wars with Mexico, the slave trade, the civil war, the oil boom, the decline of agriculture.

I tell her to put a sock in it, so then we start arguing about politics; she accuses me of classism, and I call her a patronising liberal.

“Socio-economic status can’t always excuse white people from their bad opinions. Some people are just shits, Bunce.”

“You can’t dismiss an entire state because you disagree with who it elects, that’s how America became so divided in the first place. We have to understand all of the cultural and economic factors that led us here.”

“Racism is a cultural factor. So is stupidity. Forgive me if I don’t want to waste my energy trying to sympathise with them.”

Occasionally Micah jumps in to remind us that he has some cousins in Texas who are “total hippies” and maybe we should stop generalising a state with 28 million people in it. Also, “Britain isn't much better.”

Snow leaves us all to it. He’s happy just watching the scenery roll past, and I have the horrifying thought that in a different life, he would probably have made an excellent Texan. He could happily have spent his days on a ranch, feeding chickens and delivering calves, soaking up the sun until his skin became a permanent shade of golden brown. He’d probably drive a pick-up truck and claim he understood horses better than people. I bet he’d even look good in a cowboy hat, although I will deny ever having had that thought with my last breath. And there’s _space._ Endless, ridiculous space. He would never feel trapped in Texas. He would never be claustrophobic; he wouldn’t even bother to learn what the word claustrophobia means.

I feel strangely jealous imagining this alternate universe Simon, because if he had all that, I think he would genuinely be happy. But he wouldn’t have me. There’s no universe in which that Simon and I would even meet, let alone like each other.

Texas is not my place. The relentless sun is making my skin burn; we’re going to have to put the car roof up next time we stop, or I might actually catch fire the way I’m always threatening to.

On our way into one town, an advertisement for a restaurant promises that we will “Come for the food, stay for the fun!” The lack of irony is so painful I decide we will do neither, even though it's lunchtime and I'm sure Snow will start grousing about being fed soon.

As we get closer to the centre, Bunce points out that the city’s motto, which has been printed on banners all around town, is: “A great place to be!”

“Smacks of denial if you ask me,” I say. “They can’t really think that’s a good motto. It’s like a school with the motto: ‘we like learning’.”

“Or a bakery with the motto: ‘our scones are nice’,” says Bunce, turning in her seat to grin at Snow.

“Or a vampire with the motto: ‘I eat blood’?” he offers.

“Vampires don’t have mottos,” I scold, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. Our eyes meet; he was already watching me. “And blood is obviously a liquid.”

Simon sighs, because he’s never been very good at our word games. “Speaking of which, I’m getting hungry,” he mumbles.

“That was a very disturbing _speaking of which,”_ Bunce says. We are driving down the city’s main street now, and she leans out the side of the car like a dog. She spots a museum and a theatre, and asks if we can stop to look around.

“No,” I say, reaching out to tug her back down into her seat.

“Why not?” she huffs.

“If I stop every time you lot get bored and want an adventure, we'll never make it to California. Wellbelove will be distraught.”

“So we’re your hostages now? I never thought you, a former hostage, would be so callous with our freedom.”

I glare at her. Then I sigh, and pull into the car park of a diner. Snow grins at me in the rearview mirror, and I try not to melt. (In the heat, that is.)

“You’re driving next,” I tell the American as we get out of the car and stretch. “And we’re putting up that bloody sunroof.”

“You got it, bud,” says Micah. He claps me on the shoulder as he heads inside.

We’re welcomed by a ridiculously fit waiter. He looks like he should be playing the hot dad in a Netflix drama about a farming family struggling to make ends meet. He has grey stubble, a green plaid shirt, and a tea towel slung over his shoulder. At first I think he’s going to be grumpy, but his eyes crinkle when he sees Snow. “Hey, y’all are in luck. Best table in the house just opened up.”

Snow grins. “Great! I’m starved.”

The guy smiles back and starts to lead us through the diner. “Well you ain’t from ‘round here. Where you headed?”

Snow begins to babble about our road trip, almost tripping over his own feet as he hurries to keep up with his new friend. Meanwhile Bunce grabs my arm and silently mouths, “ _oh my god,”_ presumably in reference to the fact that we seem to have stumbled across Texas's biggest DILF.

I hate him. And I stick out something rotten in this place. I’m wearing navy linen trousers and my cream flowered jacket again. Everyone else is wearing at least one item of denim, like it isn’t 1,000 degrees outside. I can feel eyes on me as I walk past the other diners, so I settle my face into a neutral sneer and follow my idiot friends to a big table by the window. I slide in next to Bunce, opposite Snow.

“What the hell are chicken tenders?” asks Bunce as soon as the DILF is gone, staring at the laminated menu in confusion.

“You guys don’t have chicken tenders?” asks Micah. For the first time this trip, he looks genuinely shocked. “You’ve been missing out, they’re divine.”

“Oh no,” Snow says. “I was going to get a cheeseburger, but now I don’t know.”

“Order the burger, Snow,” I say. “I’ll get the chicken.”

He beams at me. I roll my eyes at him and try not to smile back. (We both know that I will eat approximately one-fifth of my meal, for appearance’s sake, and that he will polish off the rest.) (You’d think that our wildly different eating habits would have been one of the roadblocks in our relationship, but in fact it was one of the things that worked best. I’ve missed having a human dustbin to save me from the social shame of being a food waster or a suspected anorexic.)

“You two are ridiculous,” Bunce mumbles. “I can’t believe you didn’t speak for a year.”

“Too soon, Pen,” says Snow.

At the same time, I say: “It’s not my fault Snow decided to ‘find himself’.”

Bunce laughs. “Apparently not too soon, after all.” Snow kicks at her and she laughs harder.

“Y'all ready to order?” asks the DILF, appearing at our table again with a little notebook. His name badge says Cody.

We are. When we're done, and Cody has finished chatting to Snow about food, and whether a monsoon is on its way, and the best route to the Grand Canyon from here, Micah asks: “So what do you think of Texas so far, Simon? These two have already made their feelings pretty clear.”

Snow bites his lip while he thinks about the question, and fiddles with the corner of a menu. The lamination has split open. He’s making it worse; I want to reach out and take his hand to keep it still. (But I don’t. Obviously.)

“I like it,” he says eventually. “The people seem nice. It feels… honest. You know? Like, no one here is pretending to be anyone they're not.”

I snort. Everyone looks at me. “There are probably some gay kids in the local high school who'd disagree with you,” I tell him.

Snow shrugs and lets go of the menu, clasping his hands together and considering me with his head cocked to one side. He looks frighteningly thoughtful. “Maybe. That's true anywhere though, isn't it? It's not like you were out and proud at Watford.”

“Not because I was scared,” I argue. “It wasn't anybody's business. And we were a little busy, if you recall.”

Snow shrugs again. “Would've saved a lot of time if you'd just told me though, wouldn't it?”

I don't think we're talking about queer kids in rural Texas any more. Arguing with Snow is often like that. You think it's just some friendly politics, but actually it's shared childhood trauma. “And what would the Chosen One have done with that information?”

Snow glares at me for using his old nickname. “Punched you less, for a start. Probably.”

“Well that's just offensive.” I lean back in my seat. “Are you saying gay kids can't punch back? I think I held my own.”

“Stop being a twat, you know what I mean.”

“I honestly don't,” I say, because if he didn't mean that, then he meant that we would have stopped punching each other and kissed instead. And while that may be true, it seems dangerously close to flirting for someone who said he wanted to be “friends” yesterday.

I start to feel a strop coming on.

“Hey, can you keep your voices down please?” I turn around to see a gruff man wearing honest to god cowboy boots standing in front of our table. He has his thumbs stuck jauntily through his belt hooks.

“Excuse me?” I ask, raising an eyebrow to make it clear what I think of his sartorial choices.

“There are kids eating here. I'm just asking if you can keep the noise down so they don't overhear something they shouldn't.”

“Sorry,” says Simon, blushing. “Did I swear? I didn't mean to.”

“Don’t apologise, Snow, it's not the swearing he has a problem with.” I cross my arms. “Is it?”

A red flush is creeping up the man's neck. He looks like he's trying his hardest to be civil. “It's not,” he admits eventually. He’s trying not to cause a scene, which is funny considering he was the one who started this.

“What's the problem?” asks Bunce, frowning. (She'll get a terrible wrinkle one day.)

“This gentleman has kindly decided to prove my point for me,” I explain to the group, waving my hand in his direction. “He doesn't want me talking about being gay where he might overhear it.”

“Now hold up, this is about kids-”

I snap my head towards him. (I can do it freakishly fast. It makes him jump.) “Why? Will hearing the word gay corrupt them? _Daddy, what did that handsome man with the nice hair just call himself? I want to be exactly like him!”_

Maybe the falsetto was too much. Or the “daddy”. Either way our charming new friend snaps, placing two hands on our table and leaning towards me menacingly.

“Look kid, I don't know how you do things where _you're_ from, but we have manners here.”

I briefly consider my options. It's not like I'm afraid of him (perish the thought) but I don't want him to try something and ruin our lunch either. My father would ignore him until he went away. Mordelia would have hexed him with a **now we got bad blood** already. Snow would blush and stutter and rage at him, and ultimately be entirely ineffectual. But I must admit I’m rather enjoying having fun with him. So I cross my legs, rest my chin on my fist, and raise my eyebrow as high as it will go.

I am aware that this makes me look, among other things, extremely camp.

“Are you suggesting England doesn't have manners, sir? Because as a citizen of Her Majesty I’m afraid I must disagree.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I’m not done.

“In fact, where we come from it would be considered the height of impropriety to interrupt a meal in order to impose one’s own bigoted views on guests in one’s town. So kindly bugger off. _Please.”_

The man leans closer, so close I can smell his horrible breath, and I wrinkle my nose. “Fucking fag,” he whispers. Then he wrenches away and turns his back on us.

For a moment I consider cursing him. I could pull out my wand and give him troll feet, or permanent hiccups, or I could make sure that he gets papercuts whenever he opens a letter.

I could make every one he’s ever loved leave him.

I could make him beg for the pain to stop.

But I don’t, because it’s not worth the trouble for someone so insignificant. And I won’t curse people when their back is turned.

Snow is not so magnanimous. “What did you just call him?” he bursts out.

“Leave it, Snow,” I tell him.

He stands and grabs the man’s elbow. “Hey - what did you just call my friend?”

The man turns. “Get your hands off me, you little -”

But we never find out what he thinks Snow is, because Snow punches him, right in the face.

**SIMON**

“Simon!” cries Penny. She’s at my side in seconds, holding her ring out in front of her. The other diners have gone deadly silent - apart from a kid at the table next to us who starts wailing. His mother pulls him into her lap protectively, glaring at me like she thinks I’m about to start hitting toddlers.

The guy who called Baz… _that word_ is clutching his bloody nose and swearing wildly.

I lower my fist. I don’t think he’s going to hit me back. He seems too shocked.

I’m shocked too. I don’t know where that came from. I haven’t punched anybody in ages. Years, probably. But… I just couldn’t hear somebody talk to Baz that way and _not_ punch them.

The guy locks eyes with me, and for a moment I think he might take a swing. But then the waiter, or the owner or whatever - Cody - inserts himself between us and forces the guy to take a step back.

“You causing trouble in my diner again, Joe?” he asks threateningly.

“This little shit punched me!”

“And what did you do to deserve getting punched, huh? Come on, get out of here.” He gives him a little shove, and Joe glares at him, but then he leaves and slams the door behind him. The diners are watching and whispering, and the woman with the screaming kid picks him up and follows.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she says before she leaves, but I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or Cody.

“Sorry about that,” Cody says, turning to look at me. He’s smiling, like I didn’t just physically assault one of his customers. “You need anything for your hand?”

I glance down at it, and for a second I wonder if it really even belongs to me. It punched him without me telling it to. One minute I was watching Baz make fun of him, and the next my fist had planted itself in his face. “Er. No. Thank you.”

“I’ll just get you folks your food then,” he says, patting me on the shoulder, and he heads back to the kitchens.

Penny and I take our seats in silence.

“Well,” says Micah, clapping his hands together. “That was quite dramatic.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Baz asks me, his voice low. It’s the same voice he used to use when we were kids and he’d found me following him down a corridor or sorting through his things looking for clues.

“I - I don’t know,” I say. “I just - he called you a…” I can’t finish the sentence. I can’t say that word out loud. Not ever - but especially not in reference to Baz.

“I heard what he called me. I don’t need your protection.”

I frown. “You’re mad?”

“Yes I’m _fucking_ mad,” he hisses. “I was dealing with it. You don’t punch your way through problems, Snow, you’re not fifteen any more. Have some fucking decorum.”

Now I’m getting mad too. “Decorum? Is that what you call goading him into insulting you?”

Baz blinks. _“Yes.”_

I glare at him. I could never do that, obviously. Unlike Baz, I don’t get calmer and more polite under pressure. I just lash out. “Yeah, well, my way is quicker. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I didn’t thank you,” Baz spits. “And I didn’t _ask_ you to go all numpty for me. Next time, let the grown ups handle it.”

He stands out of his chair just as Cody arrives, carrying four different plates of food.

“Thank you for helping us,” Baz tells him, sincerely. “You’re a credit it to your town. I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

“Baz,” I say, my stomach clenching. “Don’t be thick.”

He takes out his wallet and puts down a handful of dollar bills. “Eat my chicken nuggets, Snow,” he tells me, and somehow he makes it sound mean. Then he stalks straight out of the diner.

“Is he all right?” asks Cody, putting down our plates.

I stand up, ready to chase after him, but Penny reaches out and catches my wrist.

“He’s fine,” she tells Cody. “Wounded pride. Simon, _sit,_ he just needs to sulk for a bit.”

“I should apologise,” I say, although I’m not really sure what for. Maybe I didn’t plan to hit the guy, but I don’t regret it now it’s over. He deserved to get hit.

“You shouldn’t. You need to eat. _Sit down.”_ Penny gives my wrist a little tug, and so I do as she says.

“Let me know if I can bag something up for your friend,” Cody says. “He looks like he needs a good meal.”

Penny snorts. “You have no idea.”

I huff and reach for one of Baz’s chicken tenders. It’s good, so I pull the whole plate towards me and eat two more before starting on my own food. “I just don’t know what his problem is. I was on _his_ side. Would he rather I sat there and let that guy call him names?”

“He’s a mystery,” says Penny. I catch her rolling her eyes at Micah though, which pisses me off even more.

“When we were in Nashville he scared off a woman just for talking to me. And she was being nice! I can’t believe he’d get mad at me for defending him when someone was actually being threatening.”

“Mmm,” says Penny. She looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

 _“What?_ What did I do? You obviously know.”

“No way. You told me I wasn’t allowed to interfere any more. You two can work this one out yourselves.”

I look at Micah for help. He just smiles and picks up his plate. “Fry?”

“Thanks,” I say, and I take one, because Baz isn't here to snark that I already have two meals of my own. “He’s such a hypocrite,” I continue. “And he’s acting like a child. Would it kill him to talk about how he feels, instead of just blowing up?”

Penny starts laughing.

“What?” I ask.

She just shakes her head at me and laughs even more.

_“What?”_

**PENNY**

Siegfried and fucking Roy. I mean, _honestly._

**BAZ**

I’ve been driving for half an hour with the roof up and the air conditioning on full blast when I finally pull over at the side of the road. I turn down the radio, which I charmed to very loudly play Shostakovich (eighth symphony, movement three), and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.

I admit I could have handled that better. And stealing the car and leaving them all in the middle of nowhere probably wasn’t my finest moment.

But… _Simon. Bloody. Snow._ My “just friend” ex-boyfriend who practically falls over every attractive American he meets, then defends my honour like I’m some helpless _Agatha._ (And let’s not forget the time he dumped me without explanation, which he has yet to apologise for.)

I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I don’t know how many more hours I can spend trapped in a car with him every day, listening to him tap his fingers and sing along to awful pop music. I don’t know how many more times I can see him stretch his arms above his head so that his t-shirt rises up and exposes a line of freckled stomach. Or run his big neanderthal hands through his hair so that each golden curl bounces back into place.

It’s breaking me. Being loved by Simon Snow was one thing. One glorious, perfect thing that seemed like a dream even while it was happening to me. _Not_ being loved by him was miserable, but it’s also how I’ve spent the majority of my miserable life, so it at least it was familiar.

But this inbetween state, when his affection is turned on and off like a sun disappearing behind the clouds, is breaking me.

I sigh, and pull out my phone. I have a series of texts from Bunce.

**(13:10) That was a bit much even for you.**

**(13:26) Are you coming back? Simon’s eaten all of your chicken.**

**(13:34) I’m thinking of leaving Micah for Cody and his french fries, y/n?**

**(13:40) DID YOU DRIVE AWAY IN OUR CAR WTF BAZ WHERE ARE YOU**

**(13:41) GET YOUR BONY BUTT BACK HERE RIGHT NOW YOUNG LADY**

As I’m watching, a selfie appears of Bunce standing in the diner car park, looking angrily into the camera. In the background I can see Simon with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the ground.

_(13:43) Keep your pants on, I’m on my way._

I look over my shoulder. There are no cars coming, so I do a U-turn and start the drive back to the diner.

I can’t see them when I arrive, so I sheepishly head inside. Cody walks over to hand me a brown bag and an ice coffee.

“Hey there! Your friends left these, they said they’re gonna check out the museum if you wanna join them. They, er, wouldn’t give me your real name.”

I don’t understand why that is relevant until I inspect the cup more closely. The diner must have a Starbucks system for labelling stuff. But instead of Baz, or Pitch - or even Tyrannus - it just says “wanker”.

Lovely.

“Thanks,” I say. “Sorry if we caused a scene.”

“Not your fault. That Simon sure has a temper though, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“I’m sure I don’t. You kids be careful out there now. Monsoon's coming.” He smiles, and for a moment I'm almost cheered up. Then I stomp back to the car and turn up the radio again while I wait for them. (I’m not going to some poxy museum.) I ignore the bag of food for as long as I can, until the smell gets the better of me and I open it to find a huge stack of fries.

I try one, warily, and it practically melts on my tongue. It’s delicious. _Damn it._

**SIMON**

I liked the museum. There were lacy dresses, battered shoes and yellow letters from some of the town’s first settlers. There were hundred-year-old photographs of the same street the diner was on, but with horses instead of cars. When we got back, Baz was waiting in the car for us, playing some intense classical music and blowing smoke out of the window. He didn’t mention the fact that he’d driven away in a tantrum. He didn’t mention anything at all, actually, just got out of the driver’s seat and sat in the back so that Micah could take over.

I climbed in after him and tried to tell him about a haunted house we’d read about in the museum, to see whether he thought it was actually haunted or just Normals telling themselves spooky stories. (Penny and Micah both thought it was fake; I thought it was real, so I was hoping Baz would be on my side. There was a description of some wailing noises that sounded _exactly_ like the wraiths in the guest room at Pitch Manor.) But he just sulked and ignored me until eventually I gave up. So I’ve been ignoring him back ever since.

Only I’m getting bored of playing Guess The Fruit with Penny and Micah. I don’t think there are any fruits left that we haven’t guessed already. When I tried to make them guess banana, Penny got it in one go without even asking any questions first. (“Try not to be so predictable, Simon, you’re ruining the game.”)

I wish Baz would stop being ridiculous and talk to us. Time always seems to go faster when he’s joining in, even if it’s only to tell us we’re being stupid. Or I wish he would cast **time flies!** on the car. But instead he's staring out of the window like he's Jennifer Garner in a sad rom-com montage.

Maybe I should have told him how I felt last night, when I realised I still loved him. It was like someone lit a torch in my chest, and it's been burning ever since. But... I wanted to wait a little bit longer, just to be absolutely sure that it’s not going to burn out again. I don’t _think_ it will. But I can't change my mind this time; I won't hurt him again.

Plus he's been in a pissy mood all day, and he’s no long longer speaking to me, and I don't understand why.

When we get to the next motel, it's actually a bit nicer than the last couple. (Although there are clouds in the sky for the first time in days. But that's not the motel’s fault.) There's a row of low, red-roofed buildings and when we drop our bags in our rooms, it looks like they might have been decorated recently. There's even pretty good WiFi.

Plus, the lady who runs it is really nice. She has long, curly hair and big round cheeks, and she smiles at us in a way that makes me think she's probably a great mum. (You know that mumsy look that some mums have? Not Daphne, or Penny's mum, or even Aggie's. Just… mums.)

She gives us vouchers to a local Mexican restaurant, and says we should call her Rachel and that we can phone her if we need anything during our stay. (“Day or night, sweethearts!”)

Anyway, she's nice, is what I'm saying. But Baz still doesn't say a word, he just hangs back looking surly and lets us do the talking. When we're done checking in we tell him we're going to the Mexican place, but he shakes his head and goes to his room. I guess he must have eaten those fries we left for him after all.

“Do you think he's depressed?” I wonder an hour later, as I’m halfway through a Margherita and a giant burrito.

“For heaven's snakes it's like bloody fifth year,” Penny groans. “Can we talk about something other than your vampire boyfriend? Please?”

“Not my boyfriend,” I remind her. If he was, there would be other ways I could get him to stop ignoring me.

“I know. That's the problem.”

I take another bite, and a bit of guacamole drips out of the bottom of a hole in the wrap. “What do you mean?”

Penny looks at Micah for help.

Micah puts down his taco and looks at me seriously. “Simon did you have a favourite toy when you were a kid?”

“Yeah,” I say. “This red rubber ball, remember, Pen?”

“Please don't remind me.” In first year Penny once threatened to throw the ball to the merwolves if I didn't stop bouncing it during dinner.

Then, obviously, we saw it again when the Humdrum captured and almost killed us.

“Do you still have it?” asks Micah.

“No. I, er… blew it up. In magic words class one time.” I try not to think about the sick feeling I had when I realised it couldn't be undone. It was one of the only personal things I had from my time in care. It was a gift from a kind foster mum before I ruined everything by fighting school bullies and getting myself sent back into the system. The only reason it hadn't been nicked was that it was actually sort of worthless. And then I exploded it.

“Do you miss it?” asks Micah.

“Not really. I mean, I was eleven, so. I got over it.”

“Did you miss it when you were twelve?”

I think of that first awful summer after Watford. “Yeah.”

“What if someone else had found the pieces and repaired them, and kept it? How would that have felt, watching them play with it right in front of you?”

I frown. “It doesn't seem very fair. I would ask for it back. But… finder's keeper’s I suppose.”

“And what if _they_ lost it, and you found it again, but now you kept losing it? It wasn't the same ball you once had. It wouldn't bounce the same way, you never seemed able to catch it. But it would always show up again. It was like it _wanted_ you to keep trying, but then it wouldn't do anything it was supposed to.”

“It was only a ball. I don't think it really wants things. Maybe it wasn't repaired properly?”

“Just humour me. How would you feel?”

I don't really know where this is going, but I think about what he said. “It sounds frustrating. I guess I would be frustrated.”

Micah nods. I nod back.

Nothing happens. “So?” I ask.

Penny starts banging her head on the table. Micah picks up his taco. “Okay, what if the ball punched someone in a diner to defend your honour, but still insisted you were just friends?”

Oh.

 _Oh._ “I get it. I'm not me. Baz is me.”

“Yes,” says Micah.

“I'm the ball.”

He reaches out to pat my hand, in a very Penny-like way. “You are much more than that. But yes, you are also the ball.”

Outside there is a clap of thunder, and it begins to rain. “Oh look,” Penny says. “The monsoon.”

I think about Baz storming out of the diner earlier today. Driving away from us. Driving back again.

In his room at the motel by himself.

“Micah, will you drive us back to the motel now? I think I have to talk to Baz.”

“Fucking _finally.”_ Penny swivels in her seat, waves over a waiter, and orders our bill.

By the time I'm knocking on Baz's door, I'm wet through. My curls are dripping into my eyes (I really need to get them cut) and my t-shirt is sticking to my skin. My tail is swishing out of sight, and I'm a bit worried that it might break out of its spell if he doesn't open the doors soon. That happens sometimes when I'm stressed.

Just as I start to consider that maybe this was all a terrible mistake, the door opens and Baz is standing there looking irritated.

He's wearing silky blue pyjama bottoms and a soft green t-shirt. (Oh shit, had he actually gone to bed already? It's not even eight o'clock yet.) His hair is falling into his eyes, and he's frowning darkly at me.

I feel a bit breathless at the sight of him. I had planned a whole speech on the drive over, but now I can't remember any of it. I can't remember why I'm here. I can't remember why we broke up. I can't remember what I've been waiting for.

So I place one wet hand on the middle of his chest. His eyes flick down, surprised. He opens his mouth to complain, but I don't give him the chance. I just lean up and kiss him.

His lips are dry, but that's okay because every part of me is soaked through. For a moment he's frozen still and so I reach up to brush my fingers across his jaw (it's cold) and then he realises what's happening.

He pushes me away and I stumble back into the rain. “What the _fuck,”_ he hisses. “You can't just kiss people.” (This seems a bit rich considering he kissed me three days ago. But whatever.)

“Not people,” I say. “You.”

 _“Why?”_ He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Because - you know - because…” He’s staring at me, horrified. Oh, fuck. He doesn’t want me after all. This was a terrible idea. Now I’m standing in the rain with red cheeks and wet socks, stuttering like a total pillock. “You kissed me first!”

“You still have a girlfriend!” he explodes. Before I can protest that I don’t, I already broke up with Philippa, he’s stepped out into the rain and pushed me again, like the first time wasn’t far enough. I almost trip. “Give me some fucking _peace,_ Simon. I can’t keep _doing_ this!”

“Doing what?” I want to grab onto his shoulders, calm him down, rewind this moment and try again. But I can’t - he’s furious, his eyes are dark with rage, and he’s moving too quickly, throwing his hands in the air.

 _“Any_ _of this._ All of this! You, constantly changing your mind and throwing me away and pulling me back in. It hurts too much. It’s _cruel._ And I don’t deserve it.” He stops for a moment and puts his face in his hands. “For Crowley's sake, what do you _want_ from me?”

“I want - I wanted - _that.”_ I want things to go back to normal. I want us to be together again. I want to be able to kiss him like it’s one of a thousand kisses, not the first or the last. I want to be able to catch his eye and smile and it means _I am stupidly in love with you,_ and have him roll his eyes at me in response and it means _I love you too you big dork._ I want him to come over to our flat at all hours because he forgets that he doesn’t live there. I want him to live there. I want him to explain the long boring science articles he likes to read in bed while my head is in his lap and he hasn’t noticed that I’m not listening. I just want him back. I want it all back.

Only I don’t know how to tell him any of that, so instead I gesture between us and step towards him. _“This.”_ Maybe I should kiss him again. Maybe this is one of those arguments where it’s better to show than tell.

But he’s shaking his head at me and moving away. “Well, it's not enough. And I’m not sitting around _waiting_ for you anymore.”

I have no idea how this all went so wrong so quickly, and I feel myself start to get angry. “Then why are you here? Why did you come to America? Why are you following me around all the time?”

“I’m _not._ I tried to get away from you _twice_ today but you’re like a fucking boomerang. Just _go._ Go back to Penny. Go back to your mute. Go anywhere, just - leave me alone. I can't do this anymore.”

All of the anger seems to leave him at once, and he deflates. He runs a hand through his hair - it’s now almost as wet as mine - and turns back to his room.

“I don't want to do this anymore either!” I shout at his back. That's why I came here, I want to explain, but the words still won't form properly in my throat. I don't want these fights anymore, I don't want all this drama, I don't want screaming at each other in the rain. I just want a normal life that we share together.

He doesn’t respond, but he pauses for a moment and I almost think he'll turn around. But then he shuts the door and I’m left standing outside by myself.

In the morning, his room is empty. There’s no trace of him.

He’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cody the diner owner=Riverdale's FP Jones. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.


	10. Grand Canyon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going away for Easter weekend, so here is this week's chapter in advance! Enjoy. xx

_Put your hands on the wheel_  
_Let the golden age begin_ _  
\- Beck, Golden Age_

**PENNY**

**(08:18) What the ever living fuck is happening now**

**(08:18) Where are you??** **  
** ****

**(08:34) Rachel says you checked out of the motel last night. Are you okay? Are you coming back? Do you want us to wait for you?** **  
** ****

**(10:15) Simon doesn't want to leave without you.** **  
** ****

**(10:16) Neither do I.** **  
** ****

**(10:18) Tell me how I can help you.** **  
** ****

**(10:29) At least tell me you're safe?** **  
** ****

**(11:45) Baz we're going to have to leave without you soon if we don't hear from you. This isn't fair. It certainly isn't funny if that's what this is.** **  
** ****

**(11:59) I sat on Simon until he told me what happened and it sounds really weird. I think one of you must have made a mistake. Can you please talk to me?** **  
** ****

**(12:30) We're going to leave at 3pm if we don't hear from you. Please don't make us do it without knowing if you're okay first.** **  
** ****

**(13:41) I can see that you've read these messages you know.** **  
** ****

**(15:27) Fine. We've left without you. I'm sorry things haven't gone how you wanted but this is a pretty shitty way to handle it.**  
  
I push my phone into the glove compartment angrily, hoping that will stop me from checking it every ten seconds when he's obviously not replying.

Simon went quiet when we got in the car and finally acknowledged what I've known since this morning: that Baz probably isn't coming back.  
  
I really thought we'd cracked it last night. When Simon asked to go back to the motel I thought the angst was finally about to be over. They would go back to being the creepy, obsessive, co-dependent but somehow brilliant couple they're supposed to be - and I could spend the rest of the holiday mocking them for ever breaking up in the first place.  
  
And maybe when we got home, Micah and I could finally start thinking about moving. For good this time.  
  
Instead Simon has done his disappearing act, and our little Mustang has become the most depressing car in the desert. (Unlike Baz's disappearing act, Simon doesn't have to go anywhere to pull it off. He just... switches off. Lights out. No one's home.) (It's somehow even worse than running away.)

“Where do you think he is?” Micah asks, when we've been driving for an hour or so.

“I don't know,” I say. I glance over my shoulder at Simon, but he's staring out of the window. I don't think he's listening. I lower my voice anyway. “Probably halfway back to London by now. In a first class cabin over the Atlantic, making a bunch of millionaires feel inferior. Failing to get drunk on free champagne but trying his hardest anyway.”

“I wonder what the millionaires think of his flowery suit,” Micah murmurs back.

“Same as the rest of us. Jealousy and sexual confusion.”

“Oh, I was never confused,” he says earnestly. “The flowery suit can get it.”

I snort, and immediately cover my mouth with my hand, like I can force the laughter back inside. I don't want Simon to think we're laughing at _him._

But it is good to laugh a little. It eases the tight feeling that's been building in my chest since this morning. And when I think of Baz terrorising some slimy capitalists at 33,000 feet, it doesn't make me feel angry for the first time all day.

I just hope he's okay. And that he makes it back home soon.

**BAZ**

I wait a full day to reply to Bunce. First because I feel a bit embarrassed by my dramatic exit. Then because I don't know what to say. But then because her constant texting pisses me off. (No one can carry a 24-hour conversation with herself like Bunce can.)

Then it becomes clear that she's not going to get bored and leave me alone after all.

_(10:20) I'm in Chicago. Go away._

She replies immediately. (Stalker.)

**(10:21) What are you doing in Chicago???**

**(10:55) Answer me!**

_(12:40) Sampling the pizza. I give it 7/10._

**(12:45) This isn't funny you scared the shit out of us.**

**(12:46) Are you ok?**

**(12:46) I mean you're joking about pizza so obviously you're still a dickhead.**

**(12:46) But are you an ok dickhead?**

_(13:10) I never knew you cared._

**(13:12) Don't fuck with me. I'm not Simon.**

**(13:14) What happened?**

**(13:29) Stop leaving me on read you insufferable arse!!!**

I leave her on read and decide to explore the city. I didn't see much of it yesterday, what with heading to a bar as soon as the flight from Texas landed and attempting to get blackout drunk at four in the afternoon. (Still no luck.)

I think I like it here. It's still hot, but it's not burning. And the air isn't so dry; I no longer feel like a walking stack of kindling.

Plus, the city's locals seem appropriately miserable for cosmopolitans stuck at work during high summer. Like they don't care if you're gay but they might kick you if you take too long deciding what to order for lunch. Which is, frankly, a welcome relief.

It also has a fairly decent art museum. This trip has been significantly lacking in anything resembling culture from the moment Snow dragged us to Times Square. I spend a pleasant two hours with the impressionists, and a good twenty minutes standing in front of Hopper's _Nighthawks._ I don't usually like American paintings (too showy) but something about this one creeps under my ribcage and then settles there.

It’s hard to look away, so I don’t.

When I finally leave and check my phone, I have four missed calls from Bunce. I go back to the hotel, order a drink at the bar, and call her back. She picks up straight away.

“You are seriously testing my patience, Basil.”

“Hello, Bunce, it’s so nice to hear your voice. How have you been?”

“Heinous, thanks. You?”

“Delightful. We should have driven through the mid-west, it’s almost tolerable here.”

“Are you coming back?”

I sigh. She never would have made it in the Old Families; she’s terrible at small talk. But I suppose I’ve been avoiding this question long enough. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one wants me there.”

“ _I_ want you here. Although I’m struggling to remember why.”

“Fine. Snow doesn’t want me there.”

“Since when? Last I knew, he was demanding we drive him to your room so he could snog your face off.”

I close my eyes. “Exactly.”

“Exactly _what?_ You don’t want to snog him any more? I know that’s not true.”

“I don’t _just_ want to snog him,” I growl, and the bartender raises his eyebrows at me. I swivel on my stool so I’m facing the window.

“Gross,” Penny sniffs. “Still doesn’t explain why you left.”

“What - shut up. I mean, that’s all he wanted, and I can’t give him that. I won't just be casual. He should have known not to ask.”

For a moment, Bunce might actually be lost for words, and I feel some small satisfaction. Not for long though. Mostly I just feel humiliated, and she finds her voice soon enough. “He said he wanted to keep it casual?”

I grit my teeth. “Yes.”

“Are you sure? That’s… not what he was planning to say. What words did he use exactly?”

I roll my eyes, even though she can't see. “He doesn’t use words. You know that. He just - showed up and kissed me, and when I asked he said that was all he wanted. He made an obscene gesture and then he got angry when I said no.” I pause, the memory making me a little nauseous. “I think it’s time we considered the fact that maybe Snow’s been the supervillain all along.”

“He’s not a supervillain,” she sighs. “He’s confused. But he does want more than that. He loves you. You’re his red rubber ball.”

“Excuse me?”

“Or maybe he’s your red rubber ball, I can’t really remember the metaphor. The point is, you want each other back. Not in a casual way. You just have to stop being so bloody stupid and talk about it.”

“He’s not acting like someone who wants me back,” I argue, moving swiftly past the ball thing.

“Sure he is. He broke up with Philippa hours after you kissed in Nashville -”

“He what?”

“Oh, yeah, he told me not to tell you. Well, whatever, the last thing you need is more secrets. He did. And then he asked for a little bit of time to get his head straight, which is fair enough, and the next day he defended you from a bigot and kissed you again. What exactly are you confused about?”

I knock back the rest of my drink. When she puts it like that, it starts to make sense. But… “He dumped me.”

“Yeah. I think it’s time you got over that.”

“He’s never told me why.”

“You haven’t given him a chance.”

I consider this. Perhaps she’s right. Snow is an idiot, after all. It would be just like him to think that one kiss could make up for a year’s worth of pain.

Then again, if I wasn’t an idiot too, perhaps he would have been right.

“Did he really break up with the mute?”

“ _Yes._ But you should get back here and ask him yourself because he’s miserable without you. We all are.”

I think of the hot air in the south making my skin itch. The cheap motels Bunce insists on booking because she's too proud to let me pay for somewhere habitable. The terrible music Snow puts on in the car. The cramp in my legs from the endless driving. The fact that this entire journey has been orchestrated to visit Wellbelove of all people, who I'm fairly certain thinks I'm still evil.

It's been terrible. I mean, really, it's been the worst holiday I can remember. I could get a plane back to London from here, and pretend none of it ever happened. It's almost Mordelia's birthday; I could show up to her party as a surprise, arms full of gifts from America, and let her show me off to all of her friends. Or I could fly to Egypt. Or New Zealand. Or Antarctica.

There are so many options that are infinitely more appealing than crawling back to Simon Snow (again) on the off-chance that he might finally want me.

**SIMON**

The door to my room opens suddenly and I jump off my bed, my wings spreading. I cast my eyes around for a weapon. If I had my magic, my sword would be out by now; sometimes I still reach for it when I'm panicked.

But it's just Penny. She must have used a spell to unlock the door. I sit back down, heart racing and wings curling behind me again.

“You could have knocked,” I say.

“I was knocking.” Penny has the same expression on her face that she's been wearing since we left Texas, the one that means she's worried about me. I look away.

She walks over and sits down next to me. “Baz just called,” she says. “He's in Chicago.”

“Okay.”

“Did you tell him you wanted to keep things casual?”

I turn to face her. “What? _No.”_

“I didn't think so. You two desperately need to talk to each other. Sober. No kissing until you've set the record straight.”

“That's… I… he left?”

“Yes,” she says gently, putting a hand on my shoulder. “But he'll come back. If you want him to.”

I shake my head. “You didn't see him. He was so angry. He was…” I trail off, because the thought of his face is making me feel dizzy.

“He didn't mean it - he thought you were, you know, still fucking him around. You hurt his pride, or his delicate aristocratic sensibilities or whatever.”

I don't say anything, because if that's true, then I've fucked up even more than I thought.

“Do you want him to come back? Because I think he probably will, but I don't want to arrange it without asking you this time.”

“He won't come back,” I say. Why would he? All I've ever done is hurt him, over and over again.

“Do you want him to?”

“He deserves to be happy.”

“Yes.” She sounds frustrated. “That's what I am trying to make happen. For both of you. Forget what you think _will_ happen. If he _did_ come back, would you want to see him?”

It's impossible. That's the only reason I nod. Because there's no point lying about something that's already over.

“Good. Then it's time for bed, we've got an early start in the morning.”

I blink. “Why?”

“Because we're driving to the Grand Canyon,” she says, like that explains everything. It doesn't. But I'm tired, and my head hurts, so I just do as she says, curl up, and go to sleep.

I keep doing what she says the next day too. Eating when she tells me to eat, sitting in the back of the car, stretching my legs when we stop for petrol. When we arrive at the north rim campsite I help Micah to pitch the tent. (We can't use magic because there are Normals around, but I'm glad to have something to do, because Penny looks less worried about me when I'm doing things, and I don't want to worry about Penny looking worried about me.)

It's late afternoon by the time she looks at her watch and decides we should go for a hike. The path is not as busy as I expected, and there are a lot more trees around. Micah explains that the famous shots of the Grand Canyon are all of south rim, so that's where most tourists go. Still, if you turn your head to the left you can see red rocks and open space, all carved out (according to Penny) by the tranquil river a mile below us. I have to fight the urge to spread my wings, kick off from the ground and soar between the stones.

I don't fly much. It would be a disaster if anyone saw me, for one thing. But also it feels a bit too much like magic. It's fun while it's happening, and I'm watching the ground fall away beneath me. But then I land again, and the moment it's over everything feels so much worse.

“Let's stop here,” Penny says once we've been walking for about an hour, dropping down on a secluded bench and pulling out her phone. It's a nice spot. There's shade from a big tree, and it's sort of tucked out of sight, but there's still a view of the canyon. I do what she says and sit next to her.

“Are you seriously texting in front of an actual natural wonder of the world?” Micah teases, standing behind us and tugging on her ponytail.

“Yes, yes, I'm a monster and the scourge of my generation. But I'm a monster with important correspondences to keep up with. And I've finally got some signal.”

Micah tugs her hair again, and then comes round to sit on my other side. “What do you think of the view, Simon? Not bad, right?”

“Not bad,” I say, because I can't think of a way to explain the funny feeling I have that all of this is some kind of strange dream, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow back in my room at Watford, brimming over with magic and terrified of killing my worst enemy.

Eventually Penny puts her phone away and we sit in silence, watching the occasional hikers trek past, and listening to the quiet.

“Should we keep going?” I ask eventually.

“No, I like it here,” Penny says. “This is just right.”

It's fine by me. All I've wanted for the last three days now is to sit in silence without anyone asking how I'm feeling or what I'm doing next. I'm just surprised she's finally letting me.

So we sit. And wait. And I wonder what we're waiting for. And then I stop wondering.

And then I find out. “Baz.”

I stand up. He's wearing a lavender suit with a purple paisley pattern, and his hair is falling into his eyes. He stops walking when he sees us, puts his hands in his pockets and sighs. “Sit down, Snow. I'm not the queen.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying one of the seven natural wonders of the world,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

I look down at Penny. “Was it you?”

She smiles at me fondly. “I told you about this yesterday, Si.”

“But I - I thought -” I look at Baz again. “You were mad at me.”

“I'm always mad at you,” he shrugs. “That's no reason to miss a good view.”

“Well, Micah and I are getting sleepy,” Penny says. “We'll leave you two to chat. I don't want to see either of you again until this sorted, you hear me?” She stands and reaches for Micah’s hand, tugging up from the bench and dragging him behind her. “Nice to see you again, Basil. And both of you remember what I said: no making out without talking first.”

Baz closes his eyes at that, like the bluntness is physically painful. He raises a hand in farewell anyway, and then they're gone.

“Well,” he says, opening his eyes after a beat of silence. We're both still standing and looking at each other. “This is excruciating. Let's walk.”

“Sure,” I say. My voice sounds kind of hoarse. “Wait - is it too sunny? Won’t it hurt?”

He rolls his eyes. “Now you notice. We've been here two weeks.”

I frown. “I’d noticed.” This is only party true though; mostly I'd just noticed him complaining.

“It's fine,” he says. “It’s easier in the afternoon.”

We fall into step and begin walking along the trail in the opposite direction to Penny and Micah.

“You should get a hat,” I say. “To protect your face.”

“I'm not wearing a hat.”

“Not like a _cowboy_ hat. There must be posh hats. Posh people hate tans, don't they? Because they make you look like you work outside?”

“That’s not posh people, it's Elizabeth the first.” He pauses. “And I'm not wearing a fucking hat.”

“I'm just saying,” I mumble. “It would protect your face. I like your face.”

He gives me a soft, strange look. “Shut up, Snow.”

We walk in silence after that. I wish he would take his hands out of his pockets. I would feel less nervous if I could hold onto one of them. Although I don't know if it's Baz I want to stop from running away, or myself. Probably both.

I wonder why he came back.

I wonder what he's going to say.

**BAZ**

I don't know what I'm going to say.

I know why I came back though, and it's the same reason I always come back: because Simon Snow isn't just the sun, he's the moon and the planets and the entire solar system too.

He's gravity.

And I'm always, always falling.

Eventually we make it about halfway down the canyon. We climb onto a couple of rocks and sit side by side, swinging our legs over the edge of the world.

I'm not too proud to admit that the Grand Canyon is just as beautiful as people say it is. Right now the sun is dropping down in the sky, turning the rocks a bright burning orange. From this vantage, with the trail behind us, everything feels ancient, untouched, and indifferent. These rocks don't give a damn what Simon and I decide to do next. They've seen it all before; whatever our problems are, they're nothing compared to six million years of the Colarado River cutting away at your armour, slowly exposing each layer of your history until it reaches right down to the bone.

That thought still doesn't help me decide what to say though.

“I'm sorry,” says Simon after a few minutes, and I suppose that's a decent place to start.

“What for?”

He takes a deep breath, and clasps his fingers together. I think about taking them in mine, but it's not time yet. “Everything, I guess. Treating you badly this trip. Not being honest about how I felt. What happened the other night. And… and the way we broke up last year. I shouldn't have done it like that. I thought the only way to get rid of you was to hurt you. But. It wasn't fair. So. I guess I'm mostly sorry about that.”

“Are you… sorry that we broke up?” I ask. It wasn't the answer I was expecting, and now I'm seriously considering pitching myself off the side of these rocks and into the river.

Simon is quiet for a long time. Just as I'm ready to tip forwards and let gravity do its thing, he starts talking again. “I'm sorry we had to. But… I think I needed to be on my own for a bit. Not because of you - you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't deserve to be hurt - but just to understand who I am by myself. You know? I went from the Chosen One to your boyfriend at the same time, and. Something about graduating and not knowing what I was going to do next… it made me feel like… like being your boyfriend was the only thing I had going for me. Like I was about to disappear.”

“I wouldn't have let you disappear,” I say. Although I wonder if that's true. Would I have realised what was happening, if he'd started withdrawing into himself and not telling me why? And then I realise, horribly, that he already was. All those times he would sulk, or lash out at me and Penny - I assumed he was messed up about the past, not afraid of the future. “You could have told me how you felt. I would have listened.”

“I know you would. But… I still think I would have needed time by myself. Just, maybe, not so much time. And maybe we wouldn't have had to ignore each other for so long.”

“I wasn't ignoring you,” I say, and if I'd fed recently I'd probably be blushing. “I was waiting for you.”

Unlike me, Snow has working circulation, and he starts to flush pink. “I'm sorry I didn't talk to you afterwards. I guess… I mean I didn't…” He struggles for the words, and then he shakes his head and growls, “You weren't talking to me either!”

I bristle. “I told you. I was waiting for _you_. You dumped _me,_ Snow. You told _me_ not to come back. It was up to you to say if you'd changed your mind.”

“But I'd hurt you. I knew I had. I didn't think you'd _want_ to hear from me at first. And then when you didn't get in touch I thought maybe you didn't want me back after all. It was like you'd given up without a fight. Like you were... relieved we'd broken up.”

I sigh. “Look. I shouldn't have to say this, but… just assume I always want you back, okay? That's a given. That shouldn't even come into it. I chose you; what matters is whether you choose me too.”

He goes quiet again, and it's torture.

“Do you ever think that your whole life comes down to just a few choices?” he asks eventually. “Like, Penny deciding to be my friend. Or Agatha deciding to run away that Christmas. They're sort of small, and they happen so quickly that they didn't know, when they were making them, that their whole life would change forever. Because you never know which choices are going to stick, or what the consequences might be. Like, Penny could have got bored of me, but she didn't. Agatha could have come home again, but she didn't. You just have to... keep making choices and hope that they work out okay.”

I nod. He's hardly the first to float this radical theory. But his face is scrunched up like it's taken him his whole life to get here, so I listen.

“And my life. I never really had many choices. I just went to the care homes they sent me to. I went to Watford because the Mage said it was where I belonged. When I got there I was stuck with you against my will.” He smiles at me, and I let out the breath I'd been holding, and thank magic for that one ridiculous choice that neither of us ever would have made by ourselves. “Even all the things I did back then - the dragon, the chimera - I didn't defeat them because I was clever, or I had a plan. Going off wasn't a choice. In the end, I've only chosen three big things. That Christmas, I chose to give my magic away. That was... right. It was the right thing to do.”  
  
I finally reach out for his hand, because I can't help it any more; it still makes me sad that his power is gone. He squeezes my fingers in response.  
  
“And I chose to kiss you that Christmas,” he says. “And it was the best decision of my life. But then I chose to break up with you in the way that I did. And it was the worst. I almost lost you for good.”  
  
I open my mouth but he grips my hand tighter, like he's desperate for me to listen.  
  
“And they all happened so quickly. I didn't think about those choices before I made them. I just made them, and waited for the chips to fall. And now I'm terrified that I can't take them back. And I'm terrified that I'll make a mistake again. But - but I've thought about this one this time. And I choose you, Baz. I should have said it at the leavers’ ball when I was 19. I should have said it the night before your graduation, even if I needed a little space first. I should have said it three days ago before I kissed you. But, you know, just to be clear. I choose you too.”  
  
The sun is dipping below the horizon now, turning the sky pink and everything else gold. But even here, amongst these antique, beautiful rocks dripping in light - nothing compares to the sight of Simon Snow looking up at me and biting his lip, waiting for me to kiss him.

So I do.

There's no fear this time. No guilt. Just his lips on mine, and the sun in our hair, and miles and miles of open space.

“Took you long enough,” he says, when I break away for a moment.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say, and kiss him again.

He's so good. Kissing Simon Snow is always _so good._ I started taking it for granted for a while; not all the time, and not on purpose. But sometimes we'd kiss goodbye in the morning and my mind would already be thinking about the lecture I had that day, or an upcoming deadline, or some other pointless thing.

Those are the moments that haunted me after we broke up. How many kisses did I waste by only half paying attention?

Not anymore. I am giving this one everything, all of my focus and all of the feelings I've been bottling up for twelve months. I'm trying to take it slowly so we can savour every second, but soon Snow has gripped my hair in his hand, and he does that thing with his chin that always sends me a bit dizzy. I hold his face carefully in my hands to keep us both steady, and his cheeks are so warm and alive under my skin, I can practically feel his pulse from here.

Unfortunately I'm so focused on kissing Snow that I'm not paying enough attention to other things, like balance. And when he reaches out to my waist to pull me closer to him, I suddenly find my feet scrambling for purchase on a ground that isn't there, and then his face slips out from my fingertips and I start to fall backwards, and then down, down, down.

 _Of fucking course,_ I think as I see Snow's eyes widen in alarm. _Of course you die in a freak hiking accident the moment you get him back. Bloody perfect._

Then I see Snow jump after me, like an absolute madman, and that's when I start to panic.

I reach for my wand, but before I can find it Snow's arms are back around me, and his wings have burst out - and then we're soaring upwards again, gravity be damned, and we're not going to die the most embarrassing death in history after all.

“All right?” asks Snow, grinning lopsidedly at me as he hovers above the canyon.

My arms are gripped tight around his neck - it's all I can do not to wrap my legs around him and go full koala - but I manage to sneer at him anyway. (Years of practice.)

“Put me down, you idiot. I'm not Lois Lane.”

“Oh, charming. Nice way to talk to the guy who just saved your life. Next time I’ll let you fall to your doom.”

He lowers us down onto the trail, far away from the ledge.

“I wasn't going to die,” I insist haughtily. I'm confident of this now that my feet are on the ground again. “It will take more than a fall to kill me.”

I'm still hanging onto his neck though, and I'm not ready to let go, so I style it out by pulling him closer and resting a shaky hand on the back of his head.

He tightens his arms around me. “Are you okay?” he whispers, and his voice is unbearably gentle.

I let go, tearing myself away like I'm pulling off a plaster, and smooth back my hair. “Of course. Shall we go back to the campsite?”

Snow nods. “You should probably sort this out first.” He gestures at his devil wings, now on full display. “In case we run into some Normals.”

I take out my wand and clear my throat. My hand is still shaking a little, but my voice is clear. “ **These aren't the droids you're looking for.** ”

His wings shimmer and disappear, and then he's normal again. He holds out his hand towards me tentatively. I take it.

And it is the feeling of his fingers curling around mine - not the kissing or the long speech about feelings - that convinces me we might actually get back to normal again too.

“What do you think the headline in the Record would be if you'd died?” Snow wonders as we begin to make our way back.

(It's an old game we used to play when we were first together, and the World of Mages was still breathlessly reporting on our many acts of heroism. “Saviours of magic get fifth takeaway in a row,” we'd joke. Or: “Pitch heir refuses to get haircut, majority poll says ‘would still bang’.” That kind of thing.)

“ _Pitch heir and rumoured vampire falls to death at tourist attraction?”_ Simon suggests.

I wrinkle my nose. “More like: _Chosen One still fucking useless, lets sexy boyfriend perish.”_

“Are we boyfriends again already?” He's grinning up at me, and I want to kiss him, and then I remember that I probably can now.

So I do.

It takes us a long time to get back to camp.

**SIMON**

I wake up with a start at about 2:30 in the morning. Another nightmare. I was back at the edge of the canyon, watching Baz's face as he fell, only in the dream I wasn't able to catch him in time. And when I got to his body it wasn't Baz at all, it was the Mage, and I'd killed him. Again.

I'm sweating, and breathing heavily, and it's stiflingly hot in this tent.

I should go outside. I don't want to wake up Baz with this. It wasn't even that bad, I've had far worse dreams in the past, I just need to take some deep breaths and maybe look at the stars for a bit, maybe cry a little, just to let it out, it's not good to bottle things up -

“Simon?”

Shit. “Go back to sleep,” I whisper, but Baz is already rolling over and putting his arm around me.

We didn't use the sleeping bags Penny brought, just a cushioning charm and a blanket, so he's able to pull me towards him and onto his chest. I lay my cheek on his bare skin, and it's cold. It's exactly what I needed.

“Nightmare?” he asks, his voice low.

“I'm fine,” I say. “Go to sleep.”

“With you on the verge of a panic attack?”

“I'm not. Really.” But I am, and I'm doing a terrible job of hiding it.

“What was it about?”

“Just the usual.”

“The Mage?”

“Yeah.” It's probably too soon to admit that I'm already terrified of losing him again. Can't we enjoy being together, just for a few days, before the anxiety comes back?

Apparently not.

“Fucker,” Baz mumbles, meaning the Mage.

“I don't wanna talk about him right now.” (This time I'm actually telling the truth.) “What were _you_ dreaming about?”

He lifts up his hand and settles it on my head, twisting his fingers through my curls. It's so familiar that my shoulders start to relax immediately. How had I forgotten about this feeling? How had I survived without it?

“I was awake,” he admits softly.

“How come?”

He doesn't answer right away, and now that my heartbeat has slowed, I start to notice the tension in his arms around me.

“Are you freaked out by the fall?”

He scoffs, like I've offended him. “No. Falls can't kill vampires.”

“Could break a bunch of bones though.”

He drops a kiss into my curls. “It's not the fall. There's just a lot to think about.”

“About us? And today?”

He hums and tightens his arms around me. I rest my chin on his chest and try to look up into his face, but it's so dark that I can only see his outlines.

“Are you not happy?”

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Then what?”

He sighs. “It just… it doesn't feel real. I'm worried you're going to wake up tomorrow, and…”

He doesn't finish.

“And change my mind?” I suggest.

He shrugs. “You're allowed to change your mind. I can't stop you.”

“I won't.”

“You could, Simon. You _did._ ”

“I won't again. Don't you trust me?”

He kisses the top of my head again, but it's not an answer.

“I'm not going to change my mind,” I say. I can't even imagine it now. I've been given a second chance. I would never - I _could_ never - waste it. I'm like one of those people who has a near death experience, and then quits their boring job to travel the world. I know exactly what I want for the rest of my life, and I'm not letting it slip away this time.

“I hope not,” Baz whispers.

I lean forward to kiss him softly on the lips. “You can trust me. I get it if you don't, but. I'm going to prove it to you. Wait and see.”

“Okay,” he says, and he kisses me again. “Are you still feeling bad about the dream?”

I lay my head back on his chest. “I'm okay. You should go to sleep. I promise I'll be here in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baz you big dork.


	11. California

_It's you, it's you, it's all for you_   
_Everything I do_ _  
\- Lana Del Rey, Video Games_

**AGATHA**

I manage to wrangle a day off work when Simon and Penny are due to arrive. I spend the morning nervously cleaning the house, Lucy following me around curiously. I buy enough food to feed a small army and when I get back I pace the living room and look wistfully at the sea out of the window. But it’s probably too late to go to the beach now; they could be here soon. I wish Penny had texted me an ETA, but of course that would be too much like being helpful.

I don’t know why I’m so wound up. I suppose I’m just not used to my old world intruding on my new life like this. I don’t need Penny showing up and making my teacups dance, or Simon accidentally showing his wings while we’re out and about. I don’t need _drama,_ but the pair of them are incapable of living a drama-free life. They’ll probably tell me they’re planning to take down a magical smuggling ring, or that they desperately need my help saving the endangered snow devils or something.

“No,” I say, sitting at the dressing table in my bedroom and staring into the mirror. Lucy is dozing quietly at my feet. 

“No, I won’t help you,” I tell my reflection, hoping that my voice sounds commanding. “I would rather not get involved, thank you. Please ask someone else to be bait this time.”

My reflection grimaces back at me. She doesn’t look convinced by her own words. I try a different tack. “I am my own person,” I tell her. “My past does not define me. My future is in my hands. I do not have to do things just because other people expect them of me.”

Christ, I wish I’d spent the day at the beach instead. Maybe I could just go, and let them arrive to an empty house. I could leave a key under the mat; it’s not like there’s much crime around here. They could let themselves in, Simon could eat everything in my fridge. Maybe I wouldn’t even have to come back. I could go and stay at José’s for the night. He’s not my boyfriend (neither of us want that) but he’d probably let me crash for a couple of days anyway. He’s a good guy.

But I know I can't. I know I have to stay and see my friends. I do _want_ to, deep down. I’ve been worried about Simon ever since Penny first called me to say he was having a crisis. I want to hear about his bakery job, and how it’s going with Philippa, and I want to see his face when he steps foot in the Pacific for the first time. I want them to like it here; I just want them to be _normal_ , just this once, just for a few days.

The doorbell rings and I take a deep breath. Here goes.

When I open the door, Penny comes flying at me and gives me the biggest hug. I hug her back, laughing, and pat her on the shoulder.

Behind her, Micah is smiling and holding a backpack. Simon is grinning at me and holding hands with - oh my god.

“What are you doing here?” I let go of Penny, and she turns around to look at Baz.

“Oh, yeah, Baz came with us,” she says off-hand, like this isn’t _vital information she should have told me earlier._ No one explains why he’s holding Simon’s hand.

“Hello, Wellbelove,” Baz says, nodding politely. “This is a lovely home.”

I realise I’m gaping at him like a fish. I close my mouth. But I still can’t stop staring at him.

“Hi, Aggie,” Simon says, holding up his spare hand to wave excitedly at me. “It’s great to see you.”

He’s smiling so wide that I have to step forward and give him a proper hug. “You too,” I say, genuinely meaning it. “Did you have a good journey?”

“Yeah! Baz did most of the driving.”

I look at Baz over Simon’s shoulder. He’s watching me suspiciously with his hands in his pockets. I squeeze Simon tighter, rocking us side to side until he laughs and picks me up, and Baz glares at me.

“Not today though,” Penny says. “He and Simon were relegated to the back seat. Front seat’s for people who haven’t fallen off the Grand Canyon, am I right, Baz?”

“I will skin you alive,” he tells her.

“I’m so confused,” I say, as Simon puts me down and I finally let go of him.

“Yes,” Penny muses. “I imagine you are. Shall we go inside? I’m parched.”

She marches straight into my house. Micah and Simon follow her, but Baz stays behind on the porch. He clears his throat. 

“What?” I ask.  
  
“Er - you need to invite me in,” he mumbles, looking down at his shoes.

“Oh,” I say. “I’d forgotten about that. How inconvenient for you.”

I follow the others inside and shut the door.

“Aggie!” Simon protests. “What the hell?”

Penny is laughing. “I like New Agatha. She’s so much more savage than Old Agatha.”

I cross my arms. “Can one of you tell me what is going on, please?”

“Please can you let Baz in first?” Simon asks. He cups his hands around his mouth and faces the door, yelling like some kind of caveman. “BAZ! COME INSIDE, YOU’RE WELCOME HERE!”

“He has to be invited by someone who lives here,” Penny tells him. “It’s like you don’t know any vampire physiology at all, which is frankly shocking given all your experience with it.”

“Guys,” I say crossly. “What is going on?”

I forgot that the downside of keeping out of trouble is that it's utterly impossible to keep up with the conversation when trouble finally batters down your door demanding biscuits.

Micah takes pity on me. “Long story short: Penny invited him on the trip so that he could win Simon back, and it worked.”

Simon frowns. “It was a _bit_ more complicated than that.”

Micah shrugs. “Also Baz fell off the Grand Canyon.”

I decide to save that one for later. “What about Philippa?”  
  
“Philippa who?” asks Penny, all too innocent.

“Philippa, _Simon’s new girlfriend,_ my former roommate, who - oh yeah - Baz _tried to kill that time.”_

Penny tuts like she thinks I'm being melodramatic. “Honestly. He never try to _kill_ anyone. Well, except Simon obviously, but _he's_ not still mad about it so I don't see why you should be.”

“We broke up,” Simon tells me, ignoring Penny. “A few days ago.”

My head is still spinning. “And you’re with Baz already?”

He shrugs. “That’s why it happened, I guess. At least, it was one of many reasons. I'll tell you all about it, but. Please can you let him in first? It’s not good for him to be in direct sunlight all the time.”

“Then why did he come to California?” I grouch. But I walk over to the door and pull it open again. Baz is leaning against the white porch railings, looking at his phone, caszh as anything. He doesn’t _seem_ like he’s having a problem with the sun. “Come in, Basil,” I say. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you. Likewise.”

We both know we don’t mean it, but we’re also the only two people in this room who are too polite to say so. So he just nods at me as he passes over the threshold and walks straight back over to Simon, who immediately takes his hand again and beams up at him.

Baz rolls his eyes a little, and then bumps their shoulders together and smiles. He looks, for once, like a normal person. It’s weird.

“Have you got any biscuits?” asks Penny, hopefully.

 **BAZ**  

Typical Bunce. My presence is obviously torture for Wellbelove (her voice is at least an octave higher than normal) but she'd never actually throw me out, and Penny has taken full advantage of her impeccable manners. So here I am, in her massive living/dining room, picking at a salad she made us for lunch.

Every inch of this house is perfectly Agatha. There are vast windows looking out onto the ocean, and the furniture is all either cream or chrome. (Dr Wellbelove must be helping her out, because there's no way she's affording it by herself.) Snow keeps standing right in the middle of every room he's in, like he's afraid of touching anything. (He used to do the same thing at Pitch Manor, and then at the Oxfordshire estate. That is, until he accidentally broke a priceless vase one afternoon, and Daphne didn't even blink.) (“It's only stuff, darling,” she said, fixing it with a flick of her wrist. He almost cried with relief.)

I can tell he's unimpressed with the salad. I don't know what Wellbelove was thinking; Snow once told me he thought serving salad to guests was a “hate crime”. (That was back when we used to throw dinner parties for our friends from university in his flat. I wonder if we’ll start doing that again? Just how normal _is_ “back to normal” anyway? Is it normal like picking up where we left off? Or normal like a new relationship that’s beginning for the first time? I’d rather jump off another cliff than ask anybody, so I’m just sort of winging it.) (Pun definitely _not_ intended.) 

When Snow's plate is clear, I push my own towards him and his eyes crinkle at me. Maybe we should go out for a second lunch later, just the two of us. It will give Wellbelove a chance to yell at Bunce about me without looking rude.

“I thought we could all go to the beach this afternoon,” Wellbelove suggests, promptly ruining this plan.

Which is how I end up sitting on a rickety beach chair under a parasol with the yappy dog that Bunce once possessed, trying to read my book while the fab four play volleyball like they're in an advert for some trendy beer that tastes like piss.

Snow is on Wellbelove's team, and they're both so golden and carefree that watching them is like getting a glimpse into an alternate universe. (The same one I once thought we were all destined for.) (Or doomed by in my case.) 

But just as I've worked myself into a proper strop, Snow calls for a timeout. The others rush to the sea, already in their bathing suits, but he waves them off and says he'll join in a bit.

Instead he wanders over and flops onto my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck. The chair topples dangerously and the dog yaps at the sight of him.

“Disgusting,” I say, wrinkling my nose at Snow. “Your frivolities have gotten you all sweaty.”

“Come and swim with us,” he says.

“Absolutely not.”

“I've never seen anyone wear so many clothes to the beach,” he tells me, which is ridiculous because I took off my jacket before we left the house.

“We're not all heathens,” I mutter, but I'm distracted by his restless fingers, which are undoing the top buttons of my shirt. “Stop that. This isn't a brothel.”

He rolls his eyes and continues. “Trust me, you're way more conspicuous with this fancy shirt on than off. You look like… like…” The last button pops open, and he scrunches his face adorably while he tries to think of an appropriate insult. “Like the bad guy in The Titanic who lets all the poor people drown.”

“You think I look like Billy Zane?” This could have been so much worse. “He doesn't let people drown, he's just trying to save his idiot fiancé from killing herself over a con artist she's only known for two days.”

Snow groans and rests his forehead on my shoulder. I pat his back, and then wipe the sea spray and perspiration on his swimming trunks. Revolting. “Why do you always identify with the villain?” he asks.

“Villains are often misunderstood. You really should have learned that by now. And if we were on a sinking ship you'd better believe I'd put you in a lifeboat against your will.” 

“Wait, I'm Kate Winslet? Can't I at least be Leo?”

“No. You are just as dumb as Rose. It would be so like you to throw a multi-million dollar necklace into the sea for no reason.”

“Not _just_ as dumb,” he insists, lifting his head and grinning at me wickedly. “I, for one, think arrogant aristocrats are super hot.”

“That is the worst thing you've ever said to me,” I try to say, but he's bored of flirting now so he pushes his hands under my shirt and kisses me, and I shut up.

For a moment at least, until I realise that we're still in public. “Snow.” I break away, leaning my head back, and he chases my lips forwards to kiss me again. “ _Simon._ Save it for later, hmm?”

“Sorry,” he says, but he doesn't stop, he just kisses my cheek and then my jaw, and then the soft space underneath my jaw, right where it joins my neck. “I'm just really happy to have you back.”

“I was insulting you,” I point out, “and refusing to participate in activities.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and now he's trailed his lips down to the hollow notch right between my collarbones. _Fucking hell._

 _“Simon.”_ My voice comes out far more strangled than I'd intended, and it makes Snow grin wickedly.

“Yeah?” His hands are running up and down each nub of my spine and I feel like I might catch fire. I take a deep breath, trying not to think about last night in the tent. The way he'd touched me. The way our bodies fit together. The way it felt so familiar and brand new all at once, and the way -  _STOP._

“I’m really happy you have me back too,” I say slowly. “And I sincerely wish we were alone right now. But we're not, and this is obscene. And the dog is watching.”

He heaves an almighty sigh and straightens up, pulling his hands out of my shirt and resting them on my shoulders instead. _“Fine.”_ But then he launches his weight forward so that Wellbelove’s little beach chair topples backwards, taking us both with it. We land with a thud in the sand, arms tangled, chest to chest, and the bastard is hovering his face an inch above mine. I have a flashback to being 18, right at the beginning, when I thought our first night together would also be our last.

“You're a liability,” I tell him, but my voice comes out unbearably soft. “Why am I always falling off things when I'm kissing you these days?” He's grinning down at me with the sun in his curls, and suddenly I can't remember why I thought this was a bad idea, so I lean up and kiss him again, and I couldn't care less that that he's all sweaty and people are probably watching us and judging. All I can think is that he's _back_ , and he still wants me. It wasn't our last time after all.

“Come swimming with me,” he says, when he finally breaks away, panting. “It will be fun. Please?”

And I still don't know what's coming or what any of this means or whether it will be different this time. Whether it will be better; whether it will be worse.

But I know that Simon Snow is asking me to do something that will make him happy. And perhaps it's the little moments like these that will end up making all the difference. So I say yes.

 **PENNY**  

“I love it when a plan comes together,” I say as Micah and I are getting ready for bed. Agatha's housemates have gone on a trip to Japan together, so their two rooms are free. We're staying in the bedroom of, I assume, some kind of scented candle smuggler. Why else would anyone need _this_ many candles? Every available surface has at least five. I point my ring and light one of them, and it smells like vanilla.

“What plan?” asks Micah. He's sitting in bed already, watching me snoop through the housemate's collection of perfumes and beauty products. It's nice, obviously, because this person is living with Agatha.

“Simon and Baz. They looked really happy today, didn't they? I take full credit.” 

“They did look happy,” Micah agrees. He pats the bed next to him, and so I stop being nosy and crawl in. He puts his arm around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder. “Do you think it will last?”

“The happiness? Or the relationship?”

“Both.”

“Well they can always find something to brood about. It would be creepy if they were blissfully happy forever. But I don't think they'll break up again now. Why - do you?”

“I worry about Baz,” he admits. “He bottles everything up. And... he's not actually that nice to Simon.”

“ _Baz?_ You think _Baz_ would break up with _Simon?”_

“I don't know. I just don't always get the guy.”

“Ah, that's just 'cos you're American. Trust me, he loves Simon more than anyone has ever loved anything. He just doesn't like to show it in front of other people.”

“Well, you know him best.”

“If we have to worry about anyone, it's Simon,” I admit. “I mean… it's not like all his problems have just… gone away.”

“What? Simon won't break up with Baz.”

I laugh at the absolute certainty in his voice. “Oh? How do you know?”

“I can just tell. He's wandering around like he's won the lottery. He can't stop grinning. Plus, why would he make the same mistake twice?”

“You underestimate his ability to make stupid decisions.”

“I think _you're_ underestimating _him_ ,” Micah says, and there's an edge to his voice that's not usually there.

I sit up and shuffle away so I can look at him properly. “What do you mean?”

“You and Baz both talk about him like he's useless, but didn't he save your entire World of Mages?”

“Yeah but -”

“And he hasn't wasted the last year. He was in a bad way for a while, sure, but he put his life back together. He found a job he likes. He's more confident than he was before. It's like he knows himself better.”

“I know,” I say, bristling. “I was there.”

Micah shakes his head. “Sometimes when you see someone every day, you don't notice them changing. The Simon I've seen this trip isn't going to break up with Baz again. Getting him back was like finding the last missing jigsaw piece.”

“Well, we've got nothing to worry about then,” I huff, and I lie down with my back to him, pulling the sheets up around my neck.

For a moment I think he might leave me to sulk, which would be even worse than assuming he knew my best friend better than me. But then his arm curls around my middle and he drags me towards him, rolled up in the sheets like a caterpillar, and presses a kiss into my hair.

“Don't be angry with me,” he murmurs. “I know you worry about Simon. I'm just saying… maybe you don't have to any more.”

“I'm always going to worry about Simon a bit,” I say. “No one else does. And everyone needs someone to worry about them.”

“Okay.” He kisses my hair again, then my forehead and my cheeks and my nose until I start laughing against my will, completely undermining my own tantrum. So I kiss him properly, and the weirdness is officially over.

“I love you,” I say, because we've been together so long that sometimes I forget to tell him.

“I love you too,” he says. “More than anyone has ever loved anything. Don't give Baz all the credit.”

“Well it doesn't mean anything if _everyone_ says that,” I tease him.

“Fine. I'll fight Baz for the title tomorrow. What do you Brits call it? Fisticuffs at dawn?”

“Baz would slaughter you at fisticuffs. And no, we do not call it that.”

“Oh, well. I'll learn these things eventually. Especially if…”

“What?” He's gone shy suddenly, and it's so unlike him not to finish a thought, I start to panic irrationally.

“Maybe it's time we talked about the future,” he says. “That was your plan, wasn't it? Get them together so that someone else could look after Simon? So it wasn't all on you?”

“Yeah,” I say. I don't know why he's bringing it up when we just narrowly avoided fighting about it. “But I can't switch it off a couple of days into his relationship. I have to be sure. Even then… I'm still going to be a big part of his life. You know that, right?”

“I know. That's why I think I should move to London.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“I could move to London. I know we've always talked about you moving to America, and that's great if that's what you really want. But… why shouldn't I move to you? Isn't it a bit patriarchal to make _you_ uproot _your_ life? For a man?”

“Nicks and Slicks, that's the hottest thing you've ever said to me.” I pull him towards me for another kiss, longer and deeper this time. “But I never saw it like that. I would have objected a long time ago if I thought that. I _want_ to move here.”

“Okay. We still can one day, when we're older. We can do both. But I don't want to do long distance any more. I'm not saying goodbye to you again.”

“I don't want to say goodbye again either,” I say softly. “But… what about your family?”

He shrugs. “I can still see them. I mean, I already live on my own. My sisters are grown up now, and they look out for each other. It wouldn't be that different for them - except they'd get more holidays to Europe. Anyway, what about _your_ family?”

“My family is way bigger than yours, they wouldn't care if I moved. They're expecting it.”

“Not the Bunces - although I'm sure they would _care,_ they do love you - I mean your other family. _Simon._ You're not ready to leave him yet.”

My heart breaks a little at the thought. “No,” I whisper. “I'm not. I'm sorry - I want to be. I do. But he's... Simon.”

He needs me. He doesn't have anyone else except Baz. And if the last year taught me anything, it's that one person isn't enough. You need lots of people. You need a family.

“I know,” Micah says. “So don't. If you can't leave Simon, let me come to you. I honestly don't care where we live. I only care about being together.”

“Okay,” I say and I pull him even closer, wrapping my legs around him and burying my head into his shoulder, pressing every inch of us together like maybe I could merge us into one person. He's right - we can't say goodbye again. We can't keep living apart. We've already spent far too long with thousands of miles between us. “Okay,” I say again. “Yes. Come and live with me. Yes.”

**AGATHA**

The next morning I’m woken up by a knock on my door. Whoever it is comes in without waiting for a reply, which means it’s Penelope. I groan, and roll over. I hear Lucy running in after her and then feel her jumping up onto my bed next to me.

“Morning!” Penny says, and I feel her sit down too. “I brought you tea. I thought we could have one of our patented morning chats.”

“We don’t have morning chats,” I tell her, but I sit up anyway. Her hair looks even more wild than usual, scraped back into an enormous frizzy ponytail, and her glasses make her eyes look huge without any make up to balance it all out. I reach up to brush my fingers through the tangles in my own hair.

“Sure we do. Come on, I’ve been in a car with three blokes for the last fortnight, it’s time for some girl talk.”

I sigh, and take the mug from her, blowing and sipping. “What would you like to girl talk about? Wait - is this Yorkshire tea?”

“Of course,” she says proudly. “I always take it on holiday with me.”

“I have my own tea, Penelope,” I point out.

“Sure, but it’s not as good as this, is it?” 

I purse my lips and don’t say anything, because she’s right. “What are you going to do about tea when you live here?” I ask her.

She grins at me. “Well, I’m glad you asked. Last night we decided that Micah was going to move to London.”

“Oh.” I take another sip to cover my surprise. She’s been talking about moving to America since we were 14. “Because of tea?”

She laughs. “Maybe a little. But no, not really.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Well, it’s a bit patriarchal to uproot my life for a man, isn’t it?”

I frown. “That’s not what it was about. You would have said no long before now.”

“Yeah, I know. It sounds good though, right?” 

“What’s the real reason?”

She shrugs, and smiles the secret smile of someone in love. “It just… feels right for now. For where we are in our lives. Anyway, what’s going on with you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Isn’t that question a bit patriarchal?” I ask her, raising my eyebrows, and she laughs again.

“Yes. But I know you want to tell me anyway. Who were you texting and smiling about during dinner last night?”

She’s got me there, so I settle in and tell her about José, and then I talk about my job, and how much I love San Diego, and she listens and asks all the right questions, and I realise that I have missed her after all. If only our friendship had always been this simple.

Simple, and free from life-threatening magical quests. 

“I’m sorry you’re not moving to America,” I tell her. “It would have been nice to have you a bit closer.”

“Well, you should Skype me more often,” she says.

“You should Skype _me_ more often,” I argue. “Instead of waiting for Simon to have a crisis you need help with.”

“Fine.” She holds out her hand - we’re both finished with our tea by now - and I shake it. “We’ll both be better,” she promises.

“All right.”

She stands up and starts looking around my room, picking things up and inspecting them curiously. I’m still glowing with fondness from our chat, so I don’t find it as annoying as I normally would.

“Did Baz really fall off the Grand Canyon?” I ask.

She snorts. “Apparently. I wasn’t there to see it unfortunately. It was while they were having their big epic make up chat.”

“So weird.”

“You’re just not used to it. Trust me, spend enough time with them and you’ll realise that they’re weirdly good for each other.” She pauses and looks around. “You really have got a great house, you know. It’s so _you.”_  

“Thank you,” I say, pleased. There was a time when I thought my life would always revolve around the club, and snooty Coven parties - and that kind of life does not involve airy beach houses in California.

“What’s this?” she asks. She’s standing in front of my mirror now, and I realise with a jolt that she’s looking at the photograph of Lucy Salisbury, the Mage and her own mother. I stuck it there years ago, when I first moved to America, and never took it down. “Why do you have a picture of my mum and a murderer?”

“I don’t,” I say, and she turns to raise her eyebrows at me. “Well, yes, obviously I do. But - it’s also of the girl in the middle. That’s why I kept it.”

It's strange, now that I think about it, that she's the one who's technically a stranger. It's never felt that way to me; I felt like I knew her as soon as I laid eyes on her.

“Who is she?”

“Lucy,” I whisper, and I feel stupid - like a child who still needs a comfie blanket. I shouldn’t have kept it.

“Your dog?”

“I named the dog after _that_ Lucy. Lucy Salisbury.”

Penelope looks blankly at me. She doesn’t remember.

“Your mum told us about her years ago,” I try to explain, although I feel sure she won’t understand. “It was that Christmas?”

She knows which one I mean; we all call that Christmas “that Christmas”.

But she’s still confused. “I don’t - my mum told us _what_ about her?”

“That she dated the Mage,” I say, and her face starts to clear.

“Oh. Yeah. We were in the kitchen - that was when she told us his name _Davy_ , wasn't it?”

“Right. And then you went off somewhere and your mum showed me this picture and I just - I took it. I don’t even know why. I’m really sorry I stole from your mum, you can take it back for her if you want. It was stupid.”

“ _Why_ did you take it? Hadn’t you grown out of your shoplifting phase by then?”

“I… I honestly just wanted it. Something about Lucy’s story… your mum said she ran away from magic to come to California. And I didn’t even know that was an option back then. I can’t explain it - she just felt really important to me. Even though I didn’t know her.”

Penny is looking at me sort of pityingly now, and it makes me defensive. “Is that why you moved here?”

“I’m not obsessed with her,” I insist. “It’s not like I’ve tried to find her or anything. She just inspired me. It wasn’t easy leaving you all behind in the middle of a national crisis. None of you understood why I was doing it. But knowing she’d done the same thing… it was like she’d given me permission to say no to magic and politics. I knew I could do it because someone else already had.”

“It’s all right,” Penny says. She looks back down at the photo. “I won’t tell my mum; you can keep it if you want.”

I sigh with relief. “Thank you.” And then, because I’ve never really talked about Lucy with anyone since that day in the Bunce’s kitchen: “Your mum thought she might have been pregnant, you know. Can you imagine? The Mage’s kid might be wandering around California right now, with no idea about all the things his dad did. He’d probably be about our age.”

Penny snaps up her head and stares at me, her eyes wide. She’s given me this look before - it’s the look she always gives me when I find a clue without realising I’ve found it. It’s grateful, and impressed, but also sort of frustrated.

It’s a look that means trouble is coming. It makes my stomach tighten. I’m still sitting on my bed, and I grip my sheets into my fist without even realising I’m doing it.

“What?” I ask. “What did I say?”

**SIMON**

“We have to get up eventually,” I argue, and Baz frowns at me.

“Says who?”

We are lying nose to nose in Agatha’s friend’s bed, so I can watch every flicker of his face up close. I reach up to smooth out the wrinkles in his forehead, and his left eyebrow twitches upwards, so I touch that too. I want to touch every line in his face, until I have it memorised, even with my eyes closed.

“I dunno. Penny, probably.”

“Bunce is fine. She’s probably still asleep. Stay here.”

“I’ll get hungry soon.”

Baz’s hand traces up and down my side, like he’s learning my lines too. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

I smile at him. (I can’t stop smiling at him.) “Okay. If you promise.” 

“Promise what?”

“I honestly can’t remember,” I say, and it’s true, I’ve forgotten what we were even talking about, because my thumb has been brushing over his lips and it’s made my brain go pleasantly blank, so I close the millimetres of space between us and disappear.

But I _do_ get hungry eventually, and Baz can’t actually just conjure food whenever he feels like it; he’s not Merlin. (Or me.) (Old me that is.)

So we put some clothes on, but then Baz catches my hand on the way to the bedroom door and pulls me back towards him, and we take our clothes _off_ again, but by then I’m practically _starving_ so I stop letting him distract me.

“It’s breakfast time,” I insist, pulling on my t-shirt. He pouts. “Don’t you want to explore more of California? Maybe we can go out and get bagels and coffee or something.”

He sighs petulantly, but he gets dressed and follows me out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen.

Penny and Agatha are sitting at the table, and there is a stack of bagels already waiting for us. (Penny must have read my mind.)

“Morning,” I say, smiling, and I wait for Penny to make some lewd comment about me and Baz missing most of it. But then I look at her properly.

She’s got her Bad News face on. And Agatha is twisting her hands together in her lap, staring down at them and avoiding eye contact with any of us.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Sit down,” Penny says. Her voice is shaking a little, and I do as she says, sinking into a chair and pulling the plate of bagels towards me. She points her ring at it and mumbles “ **Some like it hot** ,” and they start steaming.

“What’s this about?” asks Baz, sitting down next to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. I shove half a bagel into my mouth, and it burns my tongue a little, but I keep chewing anyway.

Penny takes a deep breath, and straightens her spine like she’s preparing for battle, or an exam, or a particularly tricky spell. “I think we should talk about your parents,” she says.

Baz’s hand tightens. I swallow the bagel. Penny waits for me to say something.

“Why?” Baz asks eventually, and I’m grateful. It feels a bit like it did when he used my magic all those years ago - like I’m electric, and he’s the only one who can channel me safely.

“I found something,” Penny says. “Or rather, Agatha found something. Or maybe my mum did - the point is, _we_ found something. I don’t have any proof, but… well… Simon, what if the Mage was your father?”

She puts a photograph down on the table and pushes it towards me. It’s three teenagers at Watford. There’s Penny’s mum, and the Mage, and he’s got his arm around a blonde girl I’ve never seen before. She’s got curly hair and blue eyes.

And I disappear.

I can hear Baz’s voice, low and rumbling. Penny: calm, reasonable, like she’s working out the details of a plan. Sometimes Agatha: high-pitched and anxious.

I don’t know what any of them are saying. I only know Baz’s hand, and the girl’s blue eyes, and the words _Mage_ and _father_ echoing around my mind.

Then I realise I’m about to be sick, so I scrape back my chair, walk over to the kitchen sink and heave.

“Simon? Simon!”

Baz’s hands on my back. Agatha crying. Penny: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Baz turns me around and crushes me into his chest, one hand wrapped protectively across the back of my head, whispering that it’s okay.

“Everybody out,” he says, at his normal volume. There’s silence. “Seriously. Everybody out.”

I hear two chairs scrape backwards, and footsteps as the girls leave the room. I pull away and move to follow them, but Baz tugs me back towards him again.

“Not you,” he says gently. He cradles my head in his hands. “Simon. Look at me, love.”

I do. It’s like looking at him through a bubble, or a glass sheet, but I do. His face is calm, but serious. The wrinkle in his forehead is back.

“Do you want to know the answers?” he asks. “Because if you don’t want to know, we’ll leave right now. We’ll drive to LA. Just you, me and the car, where no one can find us.”

I don’t know what I want. I’m still reeling from Penny's words. I feel like I might be sick again, and the idea of driving off into sunset boulevard and never thinking about this again is definitely appealing. Never thinking again at all is appealing - just switching off and checking out of all of this. 

But then - I don’t want to check out of Baz, do I? Or Penny? Or even this holiday, which has been the best of my life. And I don’t want the Mage to be the one to spoil it the way he spoiled everything else.

Then, bizarrely, I think of Penny’s mum. What is it she always says? _Information wants to be free. Knowledge is power. The truth will prevail._

“I think I want to know,” I say. “Once and for all. And _then_ I want to stop thinking about it.” 

Baz nods, and pulls me back into his arms, and I take some deep breaths to stop myself panicking or throwing up again. “You're so brave,” he says. “You've always been so fucking brave.”

I don't feel brave. When Penny and Agatha come back, I'm clinging onto his hand like it’s the only thing that will stop me from flying away. It probably _is_ the only thing that will stop me from flying away; my wings are twitching restlessly behind me, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

“Can you start from the beginning?” I ask Penny, and she nods.

She tells me that when the Mage was young he had a girlfriend called Lucy, who was also her mum's best friend. Then Lucy disappeared one day, and the rumours were that she'd come here to California, and maybe she had a baby.

“And you kept this to yourself all this time?” Baz asks Agatha sharply. She shakes her head.

“She didn't know it was important,” says Penny. “Don't be angry with her just because you're feeling protective, or I swear to Morgana you will no longer be a part of this conversation.”

She doesn't mean it. She knows I want him here. He knows it too, but I squeeze his hand and he backs down anyway.

“And you think Lucy is my mother?” I ask. “Why?”

“A few reasons,” Penny says, and she seems grateful to have been asked a question she can answer. “Firstly, she looks like you. She just does. Secondly, it would explain a lot of things - like how the Mage knew where to find you when you were a child.”

“Because I went off,” I say. “Everyone felt it. He just followed the trail.”

“He took a special interest in you.”

“Because he thought I was the Chosen One.”

“What if he _made_ you the Chosen One?” she asks. “He knew a lot about the prophecies, and about magical transference. That's what he was trying to do that night.”

 _That night._ We all call it “that night”. She means what he was trying to do to Ebb and Agatha, before he killed one of them.

“Those are what ifs,” Baz says. “What do we know?”

I wonder if someone is going to whip out a blackboard. _Simon’s parents,_ they will write at the top. _Murderers or runaways?_

“We know that Simon was surrendered into care when he was a baby, and he turned out to be the most powerful magician in history. We know his birth wasn't in the Record, so if his parents were magicians they kept him a secret. We know that Lucy and the Mage were together, and that she disappeared around the time Simon was born.”

“Is she here?” I ask Agatha.

“I don't know,” she whispers.

“I haven't found any sign of her this morning, on the internet or Facebook or anything,” Penny says. “But if she ran away she probably didn't want to be found. She probably changed her name.”

“So we don't know anything,” Baz says, frustrated. “It could all be coincidence.”

“It's not,” I say. Everyone looks at me. “It's him.” I don’t know how I know it, but I do. It makes sense; so many things I didn't understand before are starting to click into place. “He said he'd got me wrong. That night. And that if he could change anything, it would be me. I didn't know what he meant. How could he change me? But he meant he shouldn't have had me. He meant I was a mistake.”

“You're not a mistake,” Agatha says, and the other two look at her, surprised at the fierceness in her tone. She's barely said anything all morning.

“When he saw the Humdrum,” I continue, because if I don't say it now I never will. “He called it _my boy_. I thought he was being old fashioned. But he meant it literally, didn't he? He meant it like, _my son.”_

“I think he did,” Penny says.

I nod. It makes sense. It all makes a horrible kind of sense. “What happened to Lucy?” I ask. “If she's my…”

I can't finish the sentence. If I say the word “mum” right now I think it will break me for good.

“We don't know,” Penny says.

“We'll find out,” Baz promises, and I believe him. If anyone knows how important mums are, it's him.

“Do you think he killed her?” I ask, and I swear they all flinch.

“We'll find out,” Baz says again.

“It won't matter. It's not like we could turn him in,” I point out.

“It will matter. And I swear to you we won't give up until we understand everything.”

I nod. “I think I'd like to stop talking about it now.”

“Of course,” Baz says, and he pulls me towards him and hugs me again. Penny opens her mouth like she wants to argue, but Baz shakes his head at her and she closes it again. 

“What do you want to do now, Simon?” asks Agatha.

I think about it. Lie down in a dark room, maybe. Get blackout drunk. Spread my wings and fly out into the ocean, magical secrecy be damned.

Lucy the dog scuttles into the room, her paws clattering on the white tiles. She jumps up and rests her head on my knee.

“I want to go to the beach,” I decide. I look at each of their faces. Penny is watching me with concern. Agatha is smiling, and she nods once, as if to say _good._ And Baz is just looking at me with love, his eyes shining with it, and I feel totally calm. “Definitely go to the beach,” I tell them again. “All of us. Together.”

So that's what we do.

We spend all day there, playing with the dog and swimming in the sea. Baz complains when he gets sand in his book. Agatha complains when I stand in the way of the sun (she says it will mess up her tan). Penny complains that no one wants to play word games with her.

Micah doesn’t complain, because he’s not like that, but I complain that I’m hungry until Baz buys me two burritos and an ice cream. (He says one of the burritos is for him, but he hardly touches it.) 

None of us are _really_ complaining though. In fact, as I stand with my feet in the sea, watching the waves crash in and out, I feel sort of at peace for the first time in a long time.

It turns out that thinking of the Mage as my father isn’t such a shock to the system after all. Didn’t I always see him that way? When he first came to take me away to my new life, didn’t I think: _he’s finally found me?_ And haven’t I been wrestling with his betrayal all these years _because_ I’ve always known that he was more than just my teacher?

Of course he is my father. Who else could be?

Thinking of Lucy is easier and harder at the same time. I don’t know anything about her, so it’s impossible to really feel betrayed by anything she did or didn’t do. Either she abandoned me and never tried to find me, in which case I've built a good life without her. Or she _didn’t_ abandon me, and she loved me, but something stopped her from being with me. And the thought of that - the thought of a mother who once wanted me, even if I hadn’t been born yet - settles something in my chest that I didn’t know was capable of rest.

Maybe we’ll never find the answers. Baz and Penny seem sure that we will, and I guess if anyone was going to find out it would be them. But for now I’m just happy they’re here, on my side, telling me it will be okay. And I’m happy that I finally believe them.

I’m ready to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me starting this fic: This is going to be such a hilarious romp  
> Me finishing this fic: WHY CAN'T I STOP CRYING


	12. Home

 

 _Right now I’m in a state of mind  
_ _I wanna be in like all the time_   
_\- Ariana Grande, No Tears Left To Cry_

_ONE YEAR LATER_

**PENNY**

In the end, it’s my mum who figures it out. We take the photograph home with us to show her, and we explain our theory. She mobilises every inch of power she has with the Coven until Lucy’s body is found.

It’s not clear how she died. But it’s clear that the Mage covered it up, which would have been a crime in itself if he had still been around to face charges. Baz does some sort of magical DNA test in his new lab (or maybe just a DNA test) and it proves she was Simon’s mother.

When it’s all over, we bury the body properly. My whole family comes to support my mum. (I think she blames herself for not looking for Lucy sooner, which is stupid, but grief is funny like that.) Agatha sends flowers. Baz’s family shows up to support Simon, which is sweet; the twins hang on to each of his hands all through the service, leaving Baz a bit unsure what to do with himself, so he holds mine instead.

The Salisbury family comes too, which makes it feel more real somehow. There are people outside our little bubble who have been hurt by this; maybe who have been hurt more. Simon is clearly a bit spooked by them, but he bravely talks to them anyway, and agrees to visit sometimes.

When it’s all over we go back to my family’s house, and my mum throws a big party that she says Lucy would have enjoyed much more than a stuffy memorial. The Salisburys don’t stay very long for that, and the Grimms leave after a couple of hours when the littlest kids get sleepy, but Simon and Baz stay all night long. My mum tells us stories about Lucy at school until we’re all crying with laughter, and then we’re just crying, and then she and Simon hug each other and I think that they are probably, finally, friends.

And then it’s done. Life carries on. Micah gets a job in London and finally brings all of his stuff over to the flat. The four of us don’t really fit any more, we’re constantly fighting over the bathroom (because Baz refuses to shower for less than half an hour at a time) so we decide it’s time to move out. We each get small places in North London, only a couple of tube stops apart, so we find ourselves dropping in on the others all the time anyway.

The next summer, Micah and I go on a trip to Chicago to see his family for a week, and then we drive out to a cabin near Lake Michigan, just the two of us.

“I’ve got something to show you,” I tell him on our third night there.

“Is it the fireflies again? Because I agree they’re very pretty, but I have seen them already.”

“No. I mean, sure, we’re going outside and the fireflies will be there, but that’s not what I want to show you. Don’t sass me.”

“Okay. Lead the way.”

I do. It’s a beautiful night outside. The stars are out, and the fireflies are dancing around us in the breeze, while the lake laps against the beach. It feels right. It feels like time.

“Penelope? What’s going on?” Micah's eyebrows are knitted together, which means he knows that I’m up to something.

“I love you,” I tell him, and his face clears of worry as he smiles at me.

“I love you too,” he says. “You know that.”

“Good. Then please don’t laugh.”

“Why would I -” he begins, but I shush him and hold out my ring. I start moving my hand in circles, closing my eyes until I feel the magic rising up inside me. It’s going to take a lot of it. When I’m finally ready, I start to sing.

 _“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me.”_ I don’t have a great voice, so it’s more like whispering with rhythm, but that doesn’t matter. _“Time after time. If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting. Time after time.”_

I steady my hand and open my eyes. It’s worked. The fireflies have stopped dancing. The breeze has stopped blowing. The water is perfectly still. Everything has gone silent.

Micah doesn’t look as surprised or impressed as I’d hoped. In fact, he’s looking at me like he’s been waiting for this moment all along. “You’re amazing,” he says.

“Agreed. Marry me?”

“You already know I will.” And he leans down to kiss me, taking me in his arms and then picking me up and spinning me around until I get dizzy and lose concentration, and the world comes back to life.

**BAZ**

“So what have you found?” asks Mitali Bunce, sipping a cup of tea in a cafe down the street from my lab.

“Well, convincing vampires to take part in the study was almost impossible, as per usual.”

She nods. She’s heard about all of this before, so I skip the rant about how maybe they would trust me more if the World of Mages wasn’t out for their blood.

(Mitali is the one who hired me to research the biology of dark creatures, by the way - I wasn’t kidding when I said Bunce’s connections got me the job. She thinks that the only way we can stop the fear around creatures is if we find out more about how they work, instead of relying on hearsay and folk stories. “There is nothing more scary than ignorance,” she likes to say. I’m not sure I agree with her, since I’ve faced demons and murderers before, but it’s a nice sentiment. Still, we have to keep the research secret until I find something useful, hence our clandestine coffee shop meeting.)

I continue. “But Nicodemus agreed - said he was curious - and he brought a couple of friends with him. And we can use my data of course. I quizzed them on how long they had been vampires, the age that they were when they were Turned, stuff like that. I asked them to bring pictures of themselves from that time if they had them, but that was no use, so I had to take blood samples instead.”

“That’s better anyway,” she says. “Blood speaks truer than memories.”

“That’s what I thought. So I’ve done all of the tests now, and it was pretty conclusive.”

I pause, and take a sip of coffee.

“Go on,” says Mitali, leaning forwards.

“We age,” I say. “All of us. Obviously I knew I aged as a child, but it didn’t stop when I reached adulthood; it just slowed down significantly.”

“How significantly?”

“It’s hard to tell. Especially with me; I’m still a young adult by human standards too. But the older vampires - the ones who were young when they were Turned, but have been around a long time - they seem to be changing at a rate of about 3:1. Nicodemus was Turned almost 30 years ago, but his body and his appearance have only aged by about 10.”

“So, theoretically, vampires could live to be around 300?”

“Potentially. I’d have to find a 300-year-old vampire to be sure. Of course, the ageing process could keep slowing down with time, or there could be a ceiling. And I still don’t know whether old age is something they _can_ die of, or something they just... inhabit. It’s not like they get sick. Perhaps they just get older and older, slower and slower, until they give it all up. Or until someone puts them out of their misery.”

“Well, this is an excellent start, Basil.” She leans back in her chair and cocks her head to one side. “How does it make you feel?”

“I’m pleased with our progress,” I say, looking down at my coffee cup.

“Not as a researcher,” she says. Like I didn’t know that already. “How does it make _you_ feel?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit. “Relieved that I won’t look 19 forever, I suppose. Snow is already worried that he looks like a cradle snatcher when we’re out in public.”

Mitali smiles.

“But it does make me worry about the future. About watching everyone I love get older so much faster than I will. If I’m the only one left… I don’t know. I suppose I’m used to being lonely.”

“Things could be very different by then,” she says softly. “You have no idea what will happen.”

“No. I suppose not.”

“I’m pleased to hear that you are not lonely _now_.”

“I am not.”

She pauses, surveying me over her coffee cup in silence. “Your mother would be proud,” she says eventually, and I have to look away. “But I should remind you that turning someone into a vampire is still punishable by death under mage law, no matter what the motivation.”

I almost choke on my coffee. “You think I’m going to Turn someone? Simon?”

“I just thought it worth mentioning.” She looks uncomfortable. “I know the idea might carry a certain romance. And I feel sure this is not the first time you’ve considered it.”

“I’m not considering it,” I say firmly. “I would never.”

“Not even if he asked you to?”

I swallow, but I don’t look away. She needs to know that I’m not lying to her, so that she never brings this up again. “Never.”

She nods, once. “Very well then. Care for a biscuit?”

When I get home that evening, Snow is in the kitchen covered in tomato sauce - it’s even got on his wings, which are flapping in distress.

“Evening,” I say, placing my hand on his back and kissing him. “What’s for supper?”

 _“Baz,”_ he whines. “You’re home early!”

“I am. Seeing as it’s our anniversary I imagined you might like to spend some time together, but I see now that I made a grave error. I can wait outside in the street if you’d prefer?”

“Shut up. I just mean - I was planning a surprise dinner, but then it all went a bit haywire, and it was going to be _so romantic,_ but of course you showed up right when it looks like this.” He casts his hand about the room, which is in a complete state.

I reach out and brush a thumb across his cheek, smearing the sauce while he glowers at me, and then I put my thumb in my mouth and lick it off.

“Delicious.” I take out my wand. “ **Clean as a whistle.** ”

The kitchen is gleaming in seconds, and Snow crosses his arms over his chest and sighs. “It was going to blow your mind,” he insists.

“It’s okay. We can order pizza.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Thai?”

He rolls his eyes and huffs again. “Yeah, okay.”

An hour later, we are eating noodles out of cardboard boxes on the sofa. “Mitali told me not to murder you today,” I tell him.

He laughs. “Why does everyone always think you're going to murder me? You'd never murder me.”

“Sorry, can you repeat that please? I just have to make a quick call to 15-year-old Snow. There's something he needs to hear.”

“Oh yeah? Well I'm going to call teenage Baz and tell him he grows up to be a - a big softie.”

I raise an eyebrow. “A softie? That's seriously the best you can do?”

“Well I was going to call you a dickhead, but it's our anniversary. So. Happy anniversary. You big softie.”

“That's it? My anniversary gift is you… only half insulting me?”

“Told you I was feeling romantic,” he says, grinning at me horribly. There's food in his teeth. Somehow I still want to kiss him.

I really am a softie these days.

“I'll take it.”

He throws a bit of green pepper at me. “Obviously I got you a real gift, you pillock.”

I throw a baby sweetcorn at him, but he catches it in his mouth. (Lucky bastard.) “Good, because it took you fewer than 30 seconds to start denigrating my character again.”

“You love it when I denigrate you,” he says, waggling his eyebrows and shoving a giant bundle of noodles into his mouth.

“Was that supposed to be an innuendo? That's not what denigrate means.”

“Language is fluid,” he shrugs, mouth still full. “It means what I want it to mean.”

“Did you learn that in your literature degree? Because I strongly disagree.”

“Eat your noodles,” he says. I do.

When we’re finished, Snow goes to his “secret” hiding place (it’s under our bed) and comes back with a little box, and he looks so serious that for one wild moment I think he’s going to copy Bunce and propose. (I really hope not, because I want to do it with a spell and I haven’t worked out the kinks yet, and anyway it’s tacky to get engaged so soon after his best friend.)

But the box is too big for a ring, so I calm down and pay attention. He’s wrapped it, surprisingly neatly, in silver paper. Inside is a necklace, with a small metal pendant and long, thin blue beads covering the string. The pendant has tiny carvings on it, symbols in a language I can’t read. And it’s old. It looks it, although that’s easily faked. But I can feel (the way magicians _can_ feel old things) that this is very, very old.

“It’s Egyptian,” Snow explains. “From near where your mum’s family is from. Apparently it’s some sort of protective amulet? But I don’t know if it’s real magic or just Normal legend.”

He looks at me hopefully. I pick the amulet up carefully and close my eyes. Nothing but the feeling of time having passed. I open them again. “I don’t think it’s real magic.”

His shoulders slump. “It arrived after Penny and Micah left, so I didn’t really have anyone to ask.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It would have been cool if it could protect you for real though. Like my old cross necklace, only the opposite.”

“It honestly doesn’t matter. It doesn't need magic to be important to me. And I'm capable of protecting myself.”

He nods, and we're sitting facing each other at opposite ends on the sofa, so he pushes his legs forward and tangles them in mine. His tail swishes. “I just worry,” he says softly.

“I'm not going anywhere,” I promise. “You're stuck with me. Okay?”

He nods, and smiles unsurely. “I was thinking we should go soon,” he says. “To Egypt. I know you’ve wanted to for ages, and it’s my fault we didn’t after we graduated. I thought - maybe October? Once it’s a little cooler, so you don’t get all burned again?”

“October sounds perfect,” I say, doing some quick mental calculations. I should be able to get my spell worked out by October. Bunce can always help me if things get really gnarly.

“Okay,” he says, and his smile is for real this time. “It’s a plan.”

I put the pendant back into the box carefully, and then onto the coffee table. “Come here,” I say.

“Okay,” he says again. And then he’s in my arms, and his lips are on mine, and we’re both where we belong.

**SIMON**

Philippa arrives at the bakery at the end of my shift, so I make us both coffee and put a couple of the lemon cupcakes she likes onto a plate.

“I’m going to sit over there with a friend for a bit,” I tell Mr Hatzi. “Let me know if you need anything?”

He shoos me away, so I take the tray over to the table in the corner where she’s waiting. It’s her favourite table. It’s Baz’s favourite table now too, but they’ve never been here at the same time. (It's just a good table.)

“It’s good to see you,” I say.

 _You too,_ she signs back. She’s smiling, and bouncing in her seat like she wants to tell me something.

“How have you been?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

She clears her throat. “Good,” she says, and her voice is clear and steady. I almost fall off my chair.

“Jesus Christ! _Philippa!_ When did this happen?”

She laughs, and for the first time since school, I can hear it properly. I’d forgotten what her laugh sounded like: it’s a surprisingly deep-throated chuckle, and the sound of it takes me straight back to hanging out in Agatha’s dorm room when we were kids.

“A few months ago,” she says. I'm still in shock. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“This is amazing! What made it come back?”

“I don’t know. The Mage always said it would eventually, but it never did. After you and I broke up last year, I felt so fed up, I started bothering Dr Wellbelove about it again. I’d given up hope before, but he said he might be able to help this time. Apparently Mitali Bunce is using the taxes to fund some new wave of magical research?”

“I’ve heard.”

“Yes, I suppose you have; Penelope must be loving it. So Dr Wellbelove was able to get some extra money to look into it, and we tried some new spells, and I started doing voice exercises. Eventually it worked.”

“That’s great. Does that mean…” I lower my voice. “Can you do magic again?”

She nods. “Yeah. I can. I was out of practice at first, but it’s coming back slowly. And Professor Bunce says that once I’m ready, I can take exams with the seventh years, and get some proper qualifications.”

I grin at her, and I hope it reaches all the way to my eyes. “Wow. How does it feel?”

I must be doing a poor job, because her own smiles drops, and she reaches out towards me before thinking better of it and putting her hand down on the table. “It’s weird,” she admits. “I got so used to living without it. All I wanted was to have my power back. Now it’s here, but I don’t quite know what to do with it. I like my Normal job, you know? More than that: I like my Normal _life._ The World of Mages feels kind of small in comparison.”

I’m nodding, but I don’t really understand. I let myself imagine, just for a second, what it would be like to surprise Baz by pulling out a wand one night and casting a real spell. Something casual, like reheating tea or making our bed. How happy it would make him. But it hurts too much, and I have to stop thinking about it.

“Of course, I know how lucky I am,” she says. “It’s not that I’m not grateful.”

“Yeah. Of course. I know that.”

“I’m sorry - it’s just that we used to talk about magic all the time. It would feel wrong not telling you about it now. But we can change the subject if you like.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy for you. Honest. So what are you going to do?”

She sighs, tears off a piece of her cake, and pops it into her mouth. “I’m not sure yet. I think I have to find a way of doing both. Living in the Normal world, but not letting my magic go to waste. I’d like to do something where I could work with Normals _and_ magicians.”

“It wouldn’t be a waste, you know,” I say, thinking of Ebb and Agatha. “If you don’t want your magic, you don’t have to use it.”

“I know. But I want to, I think, once I understand how. Dr Wellbelove says I can shadow him a bit, maybe get into medicine.”

“You’d be great at that!”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I was actually wondering whether I could talk to your therapist?”

“Oh - right. Yeah, of course, I’m sure she’d be happy to.” I frown. She’s still smiling at me. She doesn’t _look_ depressed, but I know by now that that doesn’t really mean anything. “Are you… are you okay?”

“Not for therapy,” Philippa says. “To find out about her job.”

“Oh! Yeah. Oh my god - magical psychologists are really rare. And magicians are all off their rockers. We could definitely use a few more therapists.”

“You don’t think it’s a bit…” She wrinkles her nose.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Too ironic? The mute who does talking therapy?”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re an amazing listener.”

She gives me a look.

“Not just because you had to be. Because you _are._ You always knew when to let me go off on one about something, and when to leave me in silence, and good questions to ask and stuff. And you never made me feel… I dunno, wrong. For what I felt about stuff, or for saying things I needed to say. If that’s what you want to do full-time, I think you’d ace it.”

“Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do. Thank you. Now - tell me more about you.”

I fill her in on the things she’s missed over the last few months, carefully skipping over too much tragedy, or too many stories involving Baz. (He wrote a letter apologising for taking her voice, but I don’t think she’s forgiven him yet. I can tell she still doesn’t like it when his name comes up. Although now that I think about it, I don’t know if that’s about her voice, or what happened with me, or both.) It doesn’t leave a lot to work with, if I’m honest. But I tell her about Penny and Micah getting engaged, and about my work at the bakery, and how the Hatzis are training me up to be a manager in case they ever decide to retire.

Then I realise the time, and I’m running late, so we say goodbye and promise to see each other soon. I grab my backpack from behind the counter and dash outside to the tube, and when I get there I run through the crowds of commuters at Liverpool Street station. I catch my train with minutes to spare.

“You’re late,” Baz says, when he opens the door at Pitch Manor. “You almost missed the cake.”

“You would have saved me a piece.” I step inside. He’s wearing a dark burgundy suit, and a silk shirt, and his hair is falling into his eyes, and he looks so fit that I take him by the lapels and give him a proper snog, right there in the hallway.

For once, he doesn’t freak out and pull away in case his parents walk by. Even better: he kicks the front door shut and pushes me against it, biting my lip and pushing his hand into my curls until I feel myself start to come undone. Are we doing this here? There are probably reasons why we shouldn’t, but I’m struggling to remember while his other hand is skating under my t-shirt.

Then it’s over, he’s stepped back and he’s smirking smugly at me, totally calm as I’m still struggling to catch my breath. My cheeks are all flushed. I must look ridiculous.

“That’s not fair,” I say.

“Don’t be late next time. I laid out a suit for you in my room.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“Hmm. No. I have places to be. I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”

He turns on his heel and walks off, and I stomp upstairs and collapse onto his bed. The suit he’s left me is a greyish lilac colour that I’ve seen him in a few times. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull it off, but at least it doesn't have a pattern.

It looks okay when it’s on though, only a tiny bit gameshow host, and the purple makes my eyes look really blue, so I decide to go with it. I try to tame my curls, so they look less dishevelled and I-just-made-out-with-your-son-in-the-foyer. It doesn’t really work. But there’s music coming from the garden, and when I open the window I can smell barbecue. I head downstairs and outside.

“Simon!” A black and pink blur comes running at me, and I catch her and pull her into a hug, lifting her up off the ground so she shrieks.

“Mordelia. Happy birthday! How does it feel to be 13?”

I put her down, and she shrugs nonchalantly, her enthusiasm evaporating. “It’s fine. No different from being 12.”

She’s trying so hard to look cool, to hide all her emotions like Baz and Malcolm do, that I have to pick her up again. This time I hoist her over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and she screams.

“Simon! Put me down!”

“What’s that? Spin you around?”

“Put me _down!”_

I spin her around, and she’s laughing and trying to kick me, and beating her fists on my back. When I stop spinning the entire garden is watching us.

Fiona is smirking. Baz raises an eyebrow. “Everything all right?” he asks, his voice icy cool in a way that Mordelia has never managed in her entire life. (I sincerely hope she never does.)

“This one thinks being 13 isn’t a big deal,” I explain. “Since she’s still a kid, I thought she’d want to play like one too.”

A few people titter, and they start to go back to their conversations. Baz just shakes his head at me.

Mordelia, meanwhile, has gone limp over my shoulder like a rag doll. “I hate you,” she says, totally deadpan.

I put her down. “Are you sure?”

She puts her hands on her waist and does her best glower. This, at least, is more effective than her icy stares. “I’m sure.”

“Oh, well, I had an Ariana Grande ticket I was going to give you for your birthday, but I don’t want to go to a concert with someone who hates me. I’ll have to ask Baz instead.”

“What? No! He won’t get it all! He _hates_ her!” She throws her arms around my middle. “Also I changed my mind! I love you!”

“Oh? Are you sure this time?”

“So sure. So much... _Uncle_ Simon.” She lets go and gives me her best puppy dog eyes, and this time she nails it. I melt.

“Oh, go on then. But only because ‘uncle’ was such a nice touch.”

She shrieks, and hugs me again, then darts off to tell her friends and lord it over her siblings.

Baz appears at my side, two glasses of champagne in his hands from the adults table. He passes me one. “You spoil her.”

We clink our glasses together. “You don’t spoil her enough.”

“She’ll never be a proper Grimm if you keep bringing all this _joy_ into her life.”

“Yes, that’s the plan.”

He puts his hand on the small of my back, and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”

I check that his parents aren’t watching, and give him a quick peck on the lips in return. (Mordelia’s not the only Grimm I’m training to emote more in public.)

“Is this what it’s going to be like when we’re parents?” I wonder aloud before I can think through what I’m saying. “You trying to instill discipline and me undoing all your hard work? Because I’m into it.”

He glares at me. “You won’t be allowed to have children, Snow, they would be a clear and present danger to society.” He pauses. “And I want to be the Fun Dad sometimes too.”

And that small acknowledgement that maybe - _maybe_ \- this could be a real thing one day makes me light up from the inside out.

“Okay,” I say, grinning at him so much that my cheeks hurt. “Fun Dad Baz.”

“Only sometimes,” he says, and when he sees how happy I am he smiles back at me. A rare, shy smile that I want to put in my pocket and carry around with me everywhere. “Just to keep them on their toes.”

“Deal.”

I want to drag him upstairs and have sex with him right now. I want to call Penny and repeat this entire conversation word for word. I want to call my therapist and tell her that I finally brought it up, and I think it went okay.

“Baz! Simon! It's cake time!”

But all of that can wait. Because the sun is shining, and my stomach is rumbling, and our family is calling for us.

And we have all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys, this has been such a blast. Thank you so much for reading, and especially everyone who commented and left kudos - it has meant the absolute world! 
> 
> Wayward SOON.


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